


Black Dahlia

by Machiavelien



Series: Rage Rising [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Michelle Jones, Canon-Typical Violence, College, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Hungry Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Jealous Peter Parker, Michelle Jones-centric, POV Michelle Jones, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Protective Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2020-11-26 07:23:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 49,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20926349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Machiavelien/pseuds/Machiavelien
Summary: Michelle Jones tells herself that it's the symbiote that's making her feel all these monstrous urges and appetites—not her. But what is she supposed to do when its favorite dish is a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?*Sequel to Spin Sorrow into Silk*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh hello! Guess who's back with her usual BS again, aka. gratuitous Spideychelle smut with some plot sprinkled in!
> 
> I recommend reading the prior fic "Spin Sorrow into Silk" for plot and world-state continuity, but I also tried to recap events as they come up, for you lawless TLDR savages.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MJ gets to know her new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: [Venom](https://open.spotify.com/track/3A0ITFj6kbb9CggwtPe55f?si=-Hlsl3A9RcO3ynbKclk8Bw) by Little Simz
> 
> I don't know if anyone actually listens to my little chapter soundtracks, but please listen to this one if you're only going to listen to one, for #ficvibes and bc it's a sick track!
> 
> TW: Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Recreational Drug Use

_“This is a love story. The thing about love is that it’s not gentle or soft, not at all. Love is strength, and full of terrible purpose. Love is power, and it will never be done with you. It consumes you.” _

_—Venom #150 (2017)_

_-*-_

During her first few days back on-campus, MJ feels off but she isn’t sure why. While everyone else is busy setting up their dorm rooms, picking classes to shop, and catching each other up on their summers, she is a ghost among them, floating by in a daze and mechanically going through the motions of her day. 

But the gnawing, unsettling weight still sits deep in her gut. At first, she chalks it up to the obvious trauma she endured at the end of the summer: her best friend and sometimes-boyfriend had gotten drugged and kidnapped, she discovered that her new friend and maybe-mentor was a professional, homicidal cat burglar, and the three of them faced off with an evil corporation that tried to gun them all down, which left MJ in the hospital for days.

But as time passes, the uneasy feeling only grows.

At least she and Peter made up, sort of, in their roundabout way. They had eventually agreed to take it slow, as if they don't have the history and baggage that they do, and try having a long distance relationship like normal college students. 

So maybe she just misses Peter, misses having him so close after a summer of cohabitation and getting to see him everyday. Maybe she's worried about another kidnapping attempt on him while she's all the way here at Harvard, unable to do anything. 

MJ also understands now, maybe a tiny bit, how Peter feels about her—the constant worrying, planning for the worst-case scenarios, and the pain of having her heart exist outside of her body, hundreds of miles away back in New York. 

Waking up in the middle of the night again, MJ is restless and incredibly horny, and also unusually wet for this hour. Luckily, she is able to masturbate quickly and easily, and falls back asleep.

Yeah, she really, _ really _ misses Peter.

But none of that explains why she has become so ravenously hungry all the time—so much so that she can wolf down an entire pizza pie, an order of fries, six garlic knots, and a milkshake on her own and still feel unsatisfied—as if she isn’t filling the right craving.

Chocolate tastes incredible, though, and is the only thing that has helped her mood swings, yet another annoyance she has to endure. The increase in emotional activity is the most uncomfortable of her recent changes as MJ has suddenly become prone to bouts of anger or sadness for no reason at all.

When her mood swings become noticeable even to her suitemates, who know her for her inscrutable deadpan, MJ starts to worry. She runs her hands across her flat stomach. A nauseating fear prickles the back of her neck. It hasn’t been long enough since her last period, so she isn’t late—yet. 

But they had been so careful, she thinks with aggravation; she and Peter used condoms every time in addition to her being on the pill. That is, until toward the end of the summer while they were fighting, and… shit. Shit shit shit. That was so stupid. She just wanted to feel the skin-on-skin contact, to see if it actually felt a little more intense… and maybe stake some sort of claim.

Stupid. 

Tugging her hoodie further over her head, MJ hopes she doesn't run into anyone she knows at the on-campus drugstore and ducks into the family planning aisle. The checkout line takes forever, leaving her too much time with her thoughts. She isn't willing to say it, even just in her head, for fear that even thinking it would make it manifest into being. 

So her thoughts loop in circles around it, avoiding the elephant in the room. She knows she’s supposed to wait until after she’s missed her period and enough time has passed for hCG levels to build up, but the waiting may drive her insane first.

The cashier drops the pregnancy test in a plastic bag like it was nothing more than a toothbrush, which MJ finds oddly calming.

_ It could be worse_, she thinks as she hustles back to her dorm room with the package pressed against her chest inside her sweater, bouncing against her hammering heart. 

_ At least it's Peter, and his stupid super swimmers. He would probably be happy about it. And scared. But also happy. _She swallows. What does that mean? MJ shakes her head, trying to dislodge the swirling anxiety and dread that are clouding her judgement. 

She pees on the stick and waits the endless three minutes while perched on the toilet in a bathroom stall. When a second line doesn’t appear even after ten minutes, her relief is tainted with uncertainty; the test line for a positive result was absent, which could still indicate a false negative reading. 

_ What a stupid test_, MJ grouses, despite fully understanding how it works, and she contemplates taking the second test in the kit right now instead of waiting until after missing her period like she’s supposed to.

Hopping off the toilet, she pads over to the sink and stares at her reflection in the mirror to count her breaths and calm the nerves running through her. She still looks the same: the dark circles under her eyes and frizzy wisps of hair that frame her tired face, her skin sallow under the fluorescent lights. Do her pupils look dilated? A trick of the light makes them shine funny.

Without warning, a black mass shivers and jumps out at MJ, like a shadow trying to reach through the mirror. She shrieks and jerks backwards, her back hitting the wall behind her. But when she looks up again, there’s nothing wrong with her reflection.

She stares down at the used pregnancy test still in her grip, as if it held the answers. 

_ You are not impregnated, _ a deep inhuman voice growls in her ears.

“Who the fuck is that?!” MJ whirls around, knocking into the toilet stall door with a clatter and dropping the plastic test stick. 

The deep voice growls again. _ Us. _

“Who are you?” Michelle gasps, her eyes darting all over the bathroom. This was it, her psychotic break; her lurking psychosis is finally manifesting. 

_ We don’t know who, only what. We are the symbiote. _

“Okay… Where are you?”

Silence. MJ stares at herself in the mirror again and starts to get the eerie sensation of being watched. 

Black veins start pulsing and running across her face, connecting and spreading into a dark alien-looking head with two large, teary opal eyes without pupils staring back at her. She stumbles backward but manages not to scream, clawing at her face only to find that there’s nothing there but her own skin. Her eyes flick up to the mirror where the alien head is still staring back.

“Is that what you look like?” MJ gasps, pressing a clammy hand against her cheek, feeling her own smooth skin.

_ It's what you think we look like. So it’s what we look like. _

So many questions are racing through her mind that she can’t decide on which to start with, which would be the most informative and help ease the delirious panic rising in her chest. “What… what are you? How come I can hear you in my head? Am I going crazy? Are you… real?”

_ We are the symbiote, and you are our host. Our first host. We are inside you. We are you. _

Michelle inhales sharply, not knowing what to do with that information. So she experiments instead, and concentrates on forming the words in her mind separately from her swirling thoughts. _ How did you get here? What's the last thing you remember? _

_ Dark. Alone… then you came and let us out. _

Her mind reels, thinking back to the metal case of the OZ formulas and the one that she took, the one filled with thick black liquid. 

_ You were dying… we couldn't let you die, so we fixed it. _

Pressing her cold hands against her stomach, MJ can almost recall the feeling of her hot blood running all over her hands, soaking into her clothes, then the thick coldness taking over. Not her entrails, then.

She startles when the bathroom door clatters open and someone from her hall walks in. Quickly turning back to the mirror so she doesn't have to awkwardly acknowledge that she doesn't remember the other girl's name, MJ stares at her reflection intently, which has returned to normal. 

When she hears the toilet stall door close, she turns and makes her escape.

-*-

MJ wakes up in a cold sweat. Her sleeping shirt and sweatpants are soaked through, and her hair is sticking uncomfortably to her neck and forehead. Taking deep breaths, she tries to remember the bizarre dream she was having, but it is slipping away from her too quickly, receding into the darkness of her subconscious. 

She's had this dream before, she thinks. There was someone else, she was talking to someone, but also no one… and she was scared? Excited? 

Her hand reaches under her pillow for her cellphone and she grimaces at the light when she wakes it to check the time. Three thirty in the morning.

Dropping her head back on her pillow, MJ rubs her eyes and tries to recall something, anything, from the night of the raid on OsCorp. Even the puckered scar on her upper arm is gone, as if she had never been shot there, and the bruising from the gunshots that hit her bulletproof vest have completely faded—not even mottled yellow patches over her ribs remain. 

Running her hands over her stomach, she inspects the smooth and flat expanse, unblemished, as if nothing ever happened to it. As if she hadn’t taken several rounds _ right there_, felt the hot gush of her blood and the searing heat of the bullets tearing up her insides… MJ remembers it now. Not her dream, but the day they infiltrated the OsCorp facility to find Peter; it's so vivid now that she can't imagine how she ever forgot. 

The refrigerated case of glass containers, the constant and rapid gunfire, the cracked and empty vial in her grasp, the body-wracking shock and pain before she passed out. But before everything went dark, she remembers looking down at her bloody hands, and the glistening, sickening ruin of tissue and guts; everything was so slippery and messy, and she couldn’t stop thinking about sepsis… A chill runs through her. How did she survive that? It's impossible.

She holds her stomach again. 

_ We wouldn’t let you die_, the creature gurgles sleepily in her head. _ We would die, too… You’re ours now, Michelle. _

-*-

On the way to her first lecture the next day, a bicyclist riding on the sidewalk clips MJ by the shoulder and sends her backpack flying to the ground. What a way to start her fucking morning. She shouts obscenities at the cyclist as she gathers her belongings, but assumes he can’t hear any of it with his airpods in—until he lifts a hand to flip her off as he pedals away. 

Good thing they’re headed in the same direction.

When she catches up to him at the next intersection, MJ angrily motions at him to take his airpods out, but he just snorts and shakes his head, running through the red light to get away from her.

Usually, MJ would let something like this drop by now and move on with her day, but this time, the injustice of letting the cyclist get away unpunished bothers her more than it should. Shaking the feeling off, she gives up her chase and heads toward the lecture hall for her next class.

By the time she gets there, there's only one spot left on the sign-up list for the TA section she wants—and that asshole bicyclist who made her late is about to take it. 

"Hey, shithead!" she snaps. "That's my spot."

The guy doesn't even respond to her and just chuckles to himself as he starts writing his name down. Indignation flares up in MJ, and before she can do anything, a dark mass springs out of her and forms a monstrous head, its gaping mouth filled with sharp teeth. She manages to exert some control and pull it back inside, leaving the cyclist pale and horrified. 

His mouth opens and closes a few times before he sputters out, "What-what the-what was that?!"

"What was what?" MJ replies, brows furrowed in confusion.

"The things that came out of you! With the teeth! You didn't see that?!"

"_The thing with teeth_?" she repeats incredulously, arms crossed. Then she tilts her head, feigning sympathy. “How about you tell me what you think you saw?”

“It was a-a freaky thing, a monster! With-with a face and everything!”

_ Thing? Monster?! _The creature growls indignantly inside her belly. 

“Maybe you're having a psychotic break,” MJ suggests placidly, as if diagnosing a hangover. “You know, the average age of schizophrenia onset tends to be in the late teens to early twenties for men. You should probably get yourself checked out. Could also be a brain tumor.”

The cyclist blanches but says nothing as he turns to leave the building in a daze, decidedly not looking back at MJ as she signs her name on the last spot on the sign-up sheet.

_ You have got to keep it together, _ MJ hisses mentally as she strides into the lecture hall. _ Like we agreed, remember? Stay out of sight during the day so I can, like, pretend I'm normal. _

_ He deserves it, _ the symbiote replies unrepentantly.

_ Yeah, but self preservation before justice, okay? _

_ That's not how you think. _

MJ doesn't know how to respond to the creature, so she just slips into a seat in the back of the lecture hall and pulls out her notebook.

“In psychology, sublimation is a psychological defense mechanism by which socially unacceptable impulses are transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse,” the professor lectures to the sleepy freshmen scattered throughout the auditorium. 

Doodling in the margins of her notebook, MJ goes over the outline of a figure doing a series of acrobatic movements down the page, filling out the faint webbing pattern on his suit and accentuating the muscles. 

“Freud defined sublimation as the process of deflecting sexual instincts into acts of higher social valuation,” the professor continues. “And this sexual sublimation aims to transform sexual impulses or libido into creative energy, into a physical act or a different emotion in order to avoid confrontation with the sexual urge. It is one of the major defence mechanisms of the human psyche.”

MJ starts coloring the figure in black ink to cover a mistake, using negative white space to form a large spider emblem across his chest. It looks kind of hot, she thinks; she should suggest the new suit design to Peter the next time they talk. 

With an epiphany, she scribbles down a note:_ Vigilante crime-fighting = sexual sublimation?? _

“Jung, however, criticized Freud for attempting to make the concept appear scientifically credible," says the professor. "Saying ‘It is not a voluntary and forcible channeling of instinct into a spurious field of application, but an alchemical transformation for which fire and prima materia are needed. Sublimation is a great mystery. Freud has appropriated this concept and usurped it for the sphere of the will and the bourgeois, rationalistic ethos.’”

MJ snorts appreciatively. A great mystery indeed. She still doesn't know anything about the symbiote—its origins, purpose, or needs—and neither does the creature. But she's going to find out.

_ -*- _

Through careful observation, MJ has deduced that the symbiote feeds on extreme emotions like anger, passion, or excitement; the direction of the feeling doesn't seem to matter as much as the magnitude and intensity of it. She hypothesizes that it may crave nervous stimulants, likely phenethylamine or an analog, which would explain the chocolate cravings and wild mood swings the creature keeps inducing. 

To test her theory, MJ tries to get through entire days without chocolate, coffee, or any other stimulants, which is physically and mind-meltingly torturous. It’s also difficult to distinguish whether the withdrawal symptoms are due to the creature or just the byproduct of regular college student life and stress. 

On those days, she can feel her tenuous control on the creature starting to slip the more starved it gets. She ends up snapping at her suitemates, arguing with her professors and TAs (more than usual), and even chucked a full latte against the windshield of a car for honking at her when she had the right of way (“I’m from New York,” she muttered at bystanders, after telling off the driver for being a schmuck who can’t drive).

“Phenylethylamine is a naturally occurring chemical found in the human brain and in some foods, such as chocolate,” MJ explains out loud while she gets dressed to go out. “It works by stimulating the release of norepinephrine, the hormone that supercharges the body for a fight-or-flight response, and dopamine, which induces pleasure and euphoria.” The symbiote doesn’t respond, even though it was very active an hour ago while she was monstrously inhaling half a dozen grilled cheeses at dinner. “Hey, goopy, are you even listening to me?”

_ Yes… we are listening. We just don’t care. Just give us more of it! _

MJ rolls her eyes, even though the gesture means nothing to the creature who can’t see her face, and tugs on her black utility jacket over her shoulders. “That’s what I’m trying to do, jeez.” 

_ I wish Peter was here, _MJ sighs while standing in the middle of the crowd. Even just thinking about him feels _ so good. _So she daydreams about the way his brown eyes become softer when he’s looking at her, and the way he rolls his sleeves up past his elbows so she can watch his forearm muscles twitch and flex. 

The high from falling in love is a result of the brain getting flooded with phenylethylamine, hence its nickname "the love hormone," MJ recalls. She files the fact away in her mental case folder for Project Mystery Ooze, a subject to revisit when she hasn’t just popped two pressed pills of ecstasy.

Taking a deep and satisfying breath—the deepest and most satisfying breath she’s ever taken in her life, she swears—as she comes up on the molly, MJ runs her fingers through her wild and unruly hair and lets the curls cascade down her back. Her feet feel weightless and nothing hurts, and her skin hums pleasantly all over, from her scalp down to her toes. 

This might be the first time she has felt content since this creature got a hold of her; she finds a stillness in her head amidst the noise and crush of dancing bodies, and can almost ignore the hunger still gnawing inside. 

The subwoofer speakers rumble, signaling the start of the DJ’s set, and the heavy bass vibrates into her bones while the drugs coursing through her body make her heart race and jaw clench, hips swaying. MJ swears she can run a hundred miles without stopping right now, and she can see everything around her clearly despite the flashing lights in the dark club.

But a sharp pain wracks her skull when the music starts, the discordant synths too shrill and loud, and she nearly doubles over. But the breath-taking euphoria from the molly is starting to ripple through her like a warm ocean wave washing over her as she comes up, soothing and energizing at the same time.

Hyperventilating, MJ can’t tell if she feels sick or enraptured. The creature writhes and pulses inside her in agitation, more scared than anything, as it tries to hide from the noise. So she pushes her way out of the concert hall until the piercing high-pitched tones are out of their earshot and the creature stills.

They are in the alleyway behind the club where some people are taking smoking breaks or throwing up against the wall. MJ can still feel the bass from the music rumbling beneath her feet, which still feels really good with the molly coursing through her blood.

Her skin is prickling and heating up, and everything looks so sharp and clear even in the dimly lit street as the drugs make her eyes dilate. Her legs shake, itching to dance now that the shrieking pain in her head was gone.

“Hey, sweet chocolate,” a nasty voice calls out. Cigarette smoke stings her nose as a guy with slick hair and a goatee comes closer. “How much for a suck and a fuck?”

MJ steps back out of his reach when he tries to grab her. “Go to hell.”

“Come on, baby, play nice. It’ll be quick, I promise. No way I can last long with such a sexy light-skinned bitch.” He laughs hoarsely. The end of his cigarette burns red when he takes another drag.

The other smokers don’t spare them a glance, but MJ is sure her face is blazing red with embarrassment, and she is infuriated that this asshole made _ her _ feel ashamed for something _ he _ was saying and doing. She was just minding her own fucking business and trying to take care of the _ thing_…

Stepping into her space and forcing her back against the wall, the creep breathes in her face. He is smiling but his expression is predatory. “You know, I could just take it and not pay you at all, dumb slut.”

_ Take him there_, the creature within her instructs with a hiss, regaining its strength as MJ’s heart races with indignation and fear. 

“Fine. But I don’t want anyone seeing,” MJ grits out, nodding her head toward an unlit alley further down the street that is obscured by industrial-sized dumpsters. The guy sneers triumphantly and pulls her by the upper arm toward the darkness.

“I bet you’re barely eighteen,” he pants as he drunkenly struggles to unbuckle his belt.

Before MJ can think of a sufficiently acidic comeback, the creature bursts out of her like two giant black jaws and clamps around the creep’s head, crushing it in a single snap. His decapitated body slumps over, just like that, another sack of garbage among the rancid black bags. 

MJ is completely speechless. The creature gurgles with contentment and makes a noise that she swears sounds like a burp. She can’t move her legs but she knows she needs to get out of here before anyone walks by. Her knees are shaking and her face is still hot with humiliation and...

_ What is this feeling? _the symbiote asks, writhing in her chest.

MJ finds it difficult to uncurl her fists. _ Rage. This feeling is rage. _

_We like it. It makes us feel… powerful. _

She exhales slowly, staring at the slight tremor of the body’s final post-mortem muscle spasms. _ Me too, buddy. _

_ Rage. _ The symbiote gurgles again, as if tasting the word. _ We are Rage. Rage! _

-*-

The righteous fury and violent justice of that night excites MJ the most out of all her attempts to satisfy the creature’s cravings, even more than the molly. Is this how it feels to be Spider-Man? To have the power to hurt bad guys and mete out justice? Was it the violence or the domination that was most appealing to her? 

But no, MJ doesn’t think Spider-Man has ever killed a person. She closes her eyes.

A person is dead, slaughtered like cattle, because of the thing inside her, the thing she can’t control or predict. 

It, or _ Rage _as it now called itself, had finished the rest of the guy's body while MJ had closed her eyes, but she will never forget the sound of crushing bones and gnashing of flesh. She has always had a penchant for the macabre and morbid, but that was something else. Also, it was a total downer for her roll. 

Checking the news periodically for any missing person reports that would match the dead guy, MJ starts to relax when nothing comes up. She has listened to enough true crime podcasts to know that a homicide conviction would be very difficult without a body, and near impossible without compelling circumstantial evidence to compensate for the lack of a body. Still, she can't be sloppy like that again—_ Rage _ can't be sloppy.

On the bright side, they both feel more satiated than ever, so MJ could stop stuffing her face with whole pizzas and going on benders to chase that feeling of fullness; she tries not to think about what it took to satisfy Rage like this and is just grateful that she got this situation somewhat under control just in time for Peter's visit. 

She hasn’t seen him since leaving for school almost a month ago, and she really misses him. They tried being official at the start of the summer, and it was working out at first, until it didn't. 

After rescuing Peter from OsCorp, Michelle spent the last week of her summer break recuperating, and his presence was a balm that took the edge off her frazzled nerves and exhaustion. They didn’t get around to talking about them and their relationship until the end, too afraid to upset the tentative peace and limited time they had left together. 

Now he was going to be hers all weekend, as long as the thing inside her would just stay satiated and dormant. 

If it weren't for the distraction from dealing with the symbiote, his absence from her life would have been unbearable during the last few weeks. 

She can see Peter through the clear storm door, standing outside with a backpack and duffel over his shoulders and headphones in his ears, waiting for her to let him in. 

_ He looks so sweet_, the symbiote growls. _ So tender. Can't wait for a bite— _

“Leave Peter alone!” MJ hisses out loud. The symbiote gurgles inside her, as if it was laughing. “I'm serious! Don't you touch a single floppy curl on that head, or I'll… stop eating the good kind of chocolate. And no more snacking on rapey assholes.”

_ No we won’t,_ it replies, rumbling in her chest. _ And that hunger for him, that craving to bite into his hard, hard flesh… is coming from you, Michelle. _

MJ sniffs but doesn’t say anything as she pushes the door open to let Peter in.

The moment they step into her dorm, she kicks the door shut and jumps Peter, pulling him down until he is on top of her. The symbiote bubbles inside her, eager to come out, but MJ fights it, tries to push it down deeper inside. It's hungry again, but she doesn't know for what and is too scared to find out. She hopes it’s not like a praying mantis that decapitates its mates afterwards. 

Instead, MJ tries to concentrate on the feeling of Peter's cock filling and stretching her with each thrust, and she spreads her legs wider for him. They have frantic, high-energy sex right there on the floor, his legs periodically kicking back and hitting the closed door as they grappled each other. 

The increased sensory function from the creature means every place that Peter touches her is set ablaze, and she is drunk off of the heady familiar scent of him. _ Mine,_ they think, wrapping her legs tighter around his waist. _ Mine! _

It’s more than just heightened physical senses, though. MJ can also detect the emotional activity buzzing inside Peter, too. He’s excited, of course, but also so happy and content, like he has everything he could need right now, but also a little scared about it ending, and above all, he desperately wants to show her how he feels. 

“I know,” she sighs in his ear and holds him tighter, pressing a kiss to his cheek, and lets herself get lost in him.

-*-

So, the carnivorous creature that has possessed her body didn’t eat Peter, which MJ supposes should count as a win.

_ More! _ Rage demands. _ He feels good! _

MJ doesn’t disagree. 

“Did you bring your web shooters?” she asks while they’re in bed watching Star Wars on her laptop.

Peter shakes his head. “This weekend is about us hanging out, not Spider-Man stuff.” MJ must look disappointed enough for him to continue and admit, “But… well, I have them with me just in case something comes up, but I didn’t bring them to—”

She snakes her arms possessively around his neck. “Feeling adventurous, Mr. Parker?”

His hair still looks stupidly cute even when it's ruffled and sticking up, and she loves how easily his smiles come, especially for her. 

Grinning, he pulls her closer. “Who do you think you’re talking to, Ms. Jones?”

Later, when she's kneeling before Peter with her eyes closed, MJ can feel the fleshy hot tip of a cock being guided against her cheek, and opens her mouth when she feels it rest against her lips. She gags when he unexpectedly drives the entire length of his cock down her throat, and holds her there by the back of her head. 

MJ lets out a husky groan and feels his cock twitch in her mouth. Rounding her lips and hollowing her cheeks, she begins sucking rhythmically until a frothy mix of pre-cum and spit starts dribbling down her chin and to her neck.

_ He tastes so good! _

_ I know..._

Her wrists are webbed together, so MJ lets her hands hang limply as she keeps sucking, giving him a deep and rough blow job. A small smile twitches on Peter's lips when he pulls out and she tells him how good he tastes, but he schools his face back into a stern mask, like she told him to do.

Later, he has MJ on her back—another one of Peter's many talents—as he braces himself over her. He hooks her legs around his hips.

“Look at me,” he rasps. “Look at my cock fuck you.”

With a whine, she tugs at his hair as best as she can with her wrists still webbed together, and grinds herself against him, desperately wanting him to fuck her faster and harder. But he just adjusts his hips to keep her pinned down against the bed, and continues his long, deep, and _ slow _thrusts. 

“Open your legs wider for me,” Peter commands. MJ eagerly obeys.

He smells so good that it's actually intoxicating, and her head is spinning. Burying her face against the hard swell of his pecs, she inhales his warm and heady scent. It's sweaty and familiar, and makes her want to do anything he asks of her. 

The symbiote feeds on her adrenaline greedily, feasting on that delicious feeling of fullness inside her and the pleasure bursting all over her body and radiating across her skin. MJ cries out again, making Peter smile smugly, so she nips at his lips and almost catches him with her teeth.

She imagines her excitement causing phenylethylamine to flood her brain, like a sea of chocolate for Rage to swim in. Submerged in that thick and sweet morass, they are both finally satiated for the moment as they crest their peak, and MJ gasps, clinging onto him. 

"Just let go, Em," says Peter. "I've got you."

-*-

After Peter leaves and heads back to New York on Sunday, the symbiote wants to experience sex again, compellng them to troll campus looking for a hookup. Having only ever been with Peter, MJ feels weird and uneasy about the idea; even though the two of them hadn't explicitly talked about being exclusive during this long distance thing, she had assumed they would be. She wants to be. 

But the craving for a good, hard fuck pulses between her legs and the symbiote's urge to fulfill that emptiness is stronger than her uncertainty, like cotton spreading through her brain and clogging up all the space for logic and reason. 

They end up hanging out at an indie-ish music venue and bar in Harvard Square to scope out prospects, but Rage keeps rejecting each one.

_ They're all weak_, it sneers. _ So puny. Better for crunching, eating. _

MJ agrees._ Told you. Once you've had a taste of Parker, there's no going back. _

_ Peter is strong. We want more of Peter. _

Sighing, she has to admit that she agrees with the sentient homicidal parasite again. 

Going home empty handed, MJ masturbates furiously that night, working her fingers in and out, then around her clit. Closing her eyes, she tries to conjure up what Peter's face looks like when he is fucking her, and imagines the feeling of him throbbing inside of her, his weight on top of her. 

She finally comes, but ends up feeling more exhausted than satisfied, clammy but finished. Rage just grumbles, unsatiated. 

Her hand reaches around her bed for her phone and when she locates it, she texts Peter a selfie of herself in her darkened room. 

_ miss you loser _

_ I want to feel you inside me again _

She gets up to use the bathroom before going to sleep, when her phone vibrates with a series of messages from Peter.

_ Miss you too _

_ Id also like that _

_ =) =) =) _

She can't stop smiling, even as she falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was that sexy and spoopy enough? What should MJ do? Let me know what you think!
> 
> PSA: be informed, stay safe, and always test your drugs if you're going to do it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MJ visits New York for the weekend and gets some on-the-job training.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: [We Appreciate Power](https://open.spotify.com/track/5b0DJPEs6UUlDmpZuoDD2X?si=VtqukcjCQzi07cUQw9QLzQ) by Grimes & HANA
> 
> TW: Blood, gore, violence, unlikeable people, and naughty behavior.

_ "Transgress your body’s borders, shed your skin, embrace your monstrous flesh. Freed of the shackles of the vulnerable female body, I will be reborn as a woman who devours." _

—_Rebecca Harkins-Cross, Monstrous Flesh: On Women’s Bodies in Horror _

-*-

MJ has slowly become one of those disgusting runner types who get up before the sun in order to jog a few loops along the Charles River, before everyone else is up and getting in her way.

Despite all the true crime serials she’s watched and listened to involving joggers, either as victims or the first ones to discover the grisly remains, she finds the predawn darkness liberating. It shields her in its penumbra, and she comes to understand why most predators are nocturnal. 

Waiting in the dark leafy shadows, a scavenger turns his beady-eyed attention to Michelle’s lone form, assessing his odds against her. Just as her nose can smell the fatty aroma of roasting meat nearby, Rage can sense the scavenger’s intent as he watches her cross a stone footbridge spanning the lagoon along the Esplanade.

_ So thin and pretty, wouldn’t be much to reach out and grab that thick hair—_

Eager with hunger, Rage growls and waits for the scavenger to catch up, to make the first move. But when another runner comes toward them from the opposite direction, the lurker loses his nerve and drops back into the dark underbrush, cowed. The scent of roasting meat fades as MJ jogs further and further away.

In Japanese folklore, there are spirit demons called _ rokurokubi _ who appear to be ordinary women by day. By night, however, their bodies sleep while their necks stretch to an incredible length or even detach, allowing their heads to roam freely; sometimes they would attack small animals, lick up lamp oil with their long tongue, and even feed on human blood. 

Together, MJ and Rage are the bogeyman lurking in the dark, insidious and carnivorous. But in the light of day, the monster becomes a harmless young woman again, and no one is the wiser. 

In all known instances, the curse of the rokurokubi affects only women, even though the cause of it may not be their own. Some stories describe how their husbands or fathers actually committed the sin, but of course the men escape punishment while the women receive the curse instead. 

The symbiote doesn’t feel like a curse to MJ, though. Maybe because she chose to take it, like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods. Or is she Pandora, Zeus’ punishment to mankind for Prometheus’ theft: the first woman? Whose greater sin—curiosity—would unleash misery upon humanity when she opened her box?

Chasing that runner’s high under the inky blue sky, MJ pursues the glowing sunrise along the water until her lungs and legs burn. Then Rage eats away the lactic acid, feeding on the pain and aches all over her body, and she feels invincible again. 

-*-

They mostly subsist on chocolate bars, mocha lattes, and a _ lot _ of jogging until MJ finally takes the bus down to New York that Friday. After her on-campus interview at ESU, she meets up with Peter at a coffee shop near his dorm building. She hasn't told him, or anyone really, about her transfer application, in case she doesn't get in. 

“Do you ever feel like there’s something inside you, something just so… angry and demanding, just waiting to get out?” she asks Peter out of nowhere, taking a sip of her latte.

He licks his lips in that way she likes when he's concentrating on something. “You mean, like, third-wave feminism and punk riot grrl rhetoric? ‘Let this dismissal of a woman's experience move you to anger…’” 

“‘...Turn that outrage into political power,’” she finishes with him and raises her eyebrows, impressed. Did he just quote Rebecca Walker at her? 

The symbiote curls and uncurls in her chest giddily. _ He smells delicious... And he makes your brain feel… horny. Ha ha ha! _

MJ doesn’t appreciate being teased by a parasite, but chooses to ignore it and focus on Peter’s face. “Sort of. But, it's like a feeling of being at odds with yourself from within. It's not always _ rage… _ sometimes it’s just _ stupidity_.”

Rage retreats to the back of her mind, sulking.

Peter cocks his head to the side. “I don’t think I entirely follow. Is everything okay, MJ?”

“Yeah, it’s just been one of those weeks.” She traces a finger along his forearm, following the muscly trails. “But I feel a lot better now.”

“Anything I can do to make you feel even better?” Peter asks hopefully, sitting up.

“I think you know how to do that just fine," she replies, sliding a foot up his calf. He gives her a goofy smile and leans closer to her. His fingers trace light circles and loops along her legs, slowly inching toward the inside of her thigh until he has a hand sliding up her skirt. Although she is wearing stockings, the skin beneath tingles from his touch. 

Meanwhile, above the table, Peter is still rambling on about what he’s been learning in Intro to Womens and Gender Studies, as if nothing was going on beneath.

"Have you read Soraya Chemaly's _ Rage Becomes Her_? I think she touches on what you were saying before, about feminine rage and the social pressures to repress that anger? Instead of using it to bring about change and upend corruption..."

_ More! Now! We want more! _

Swallowing thickly, MJ murmurs, “Dork. Someone might see…”

“Then it's a good thing I'm not suited up right now, in case there are any paparazzi around,” he whispers back, referring to the time the Daily Bugle published a photo of her and Spider-Man kissing, and MJ became a viral internet sensation for the week.

“Yeah, the Bugle would definitely have a field day with Spidey fondling college co-eds in public,” she quips back, biting her lip. Excitement is fluttering in her chest and her entire body is heating up. 

“Just another friendly Spidey-public service, ma’am,” he nods dutifully and slides his hand back out from under her skirt. 

Peter and MJ impatiently bounce on their heels during the endless elevator ride up to Peter’s floor. With her bags in hand and over his shoulder, he makes a beeline for his room with her trailing behind, giggling. He looks back and squeezes her hand, and it makes her feel silly and light—just like a regular girl.

Just a regular girl by day.

As they round the corner and pass the floor's common room, a bubbly voice calls out, “Peter! Hi!”

Peter turns and smiles when he sees Gwen Stacy waving at them. “Hey, Gwen! What's up?" He tilts a shoulder toward MJ as he pretends to hoist her bags up with effort to adjust his grip. "Have you met Michelle? She's visiting from Harvard for the weekend.”

“‘Sup,” Michelle grunts distractedly, internally trying to still Rage's growing agitation. She crossed paths with Gwen at Harry's New Year's party earlier that year, but abruptly left without introducing herself; MJ still wasn’t over Peter at the time, so she was not particularly interested in meeting his date to the party.

Gwen raises her eyebrows in recognition. "Michelle from Harvard... as in Harry Osborn’s Michelle?”

“Excuse me?” MJ’s eyes narrow dangerously and she hears the low rumble of growling fill her ears.

She can smell the fear rolling off of Gwen. No, not quite fear—maybe awe or intimidation, or something in between. MJ is still learning how to read Rage’s ability to sense emotion, but she can tell Gwen is uncomfortable around her. Good.

“Oh, I just meant that I’ve heard of you before… Harry’s talked about you, that’s all,” Gwen explains quickly. “All good stuff, promise!” She laughs lightly and looks to Peter to back her up.

With distress written all over his face, Peter looks back and forth between both women, trying to communicate something to MJ with his eyes. She doesn’t need the symbiote to detect the overwhelming tension and anxiety in the room, but MJ has no idea what he is trying to tell her.

MJ shrugs coolly. "I don’t care about what Harry Osborn thinks."

Laughing nervously, Gwen replies, “You’re in good company then! It’s just—the way he talked about you, I thought… nevermind." 

An awkward silence hangs in the common room. Gwen’s blue eyes drift down to Peter and MJ’s joined hands and fix on their entwined fingers, making MJ feel inexplicably self-conscious, as if she is doing something wrong. 

It's not like she's trying to flaunt her joy. And why should she feel obligated to hide it? But the guilty feeling is only exacerbated when Peter starts gently rubbing his thumb over hers, and she feels the heat rise in her cheeks.

Through the symbiote, MJ can sense Gwen’s internal reactions, the churning, confusing ones the other woman is trying to keep a tight control over. She is still smiling sweetly at them, even as her eyes search for something else to focus on while her insides wars with itself. Finally, a cold sensation settles in Gwen’s stomach—disappointment and resignation. 

MJ knows that feeling. It’s the same one she felt in high school whenever she watched Liz Toomes get a text back from Peter after her own were left unanswered. It’s the way MJ felt when Liz would roll her eyes in mock annoyance and then text him back while smiling to herself. It’s the feeling of not being seen, the feeling of not being enough.

“Are you coming to study group?” Gwen asks Peter, finally breaking the silence. Her voice cracks a little.

“What? Oh yeah, I’ll be there! Tuesday, right?” 

“Monday.” Gwen gives him an arched look, like this is a discussion they’ve had before. 

“Just like I said, Monday!” Peter says cheerfully. “At eight?” 

Hugging a notebook to her chest like a shield, Gwen nods, decidedly not making eye contact with MJ. “Eight o’clock. I reserved a study room in the grad student library, the one on West campus not the main one, it’s less crowded. Did you get the link to the shared google doc for notes? I can send it again if—”

_ This is taking too long! _

MJ’s eyes widen when she realizes she just said that out loud. “Uh. I mean... I just need to go to the bathroom.”

Gwen startles. “Oh, sure! It's down the hall, I can show you—”

_ Let’s just crunch her up and go, go, go…! _ The symbiote is agitated, eager, and _ very _hungry. Violent urges twitch in MJ's veins while a hot arousal pulses between her legs; one of those impulses is going to win, and MJ needs to make sure it’s the less bloody one.

“Actually, I don’t need to go anymore,” says MJ, trying to smile in a non-intimidating way, but judging by the other woman’s reaction, she isn't successful. “Long day, travelling and stuff. My body doesn't know what it wants.”

_ We're hungry! We want Peter now, or we can eat her face off! _

_ Chill the fuck out, Rage! _ MJ mentally shouts back. _ You are _ **not** _ eating Gwen, or anyone else tonight. We agreed you would behave around other people. Just wait a few more minutes— _

Without warning, the symbiote sends a hot surge of pleasure through MJ's body that nearly makes her moan out loud. A strange croak comes out of her instead, and she squeezes Peter's hand harder than she means to. 

_ Can _ **you** _ wait a few more minutes, Michelle? _

The pleasurable surge retreats as quickly as it came on, leaving a crippling hunger in her gut, and she can't stand it anymore.

“Come on, Peter, this pussy isn't eating itself,” MJ snaps, tugging him away and leaving Gwen standing alone in the common room, wide eyed.

“It's just a study group,” Peter says, closing the door behind him so that they're finally alone in his dorm. “You used to organize our study groups back at Midtown, remember?”

“Oh, I remember. I invented that move,” says MJ, falling back into his bed and letting her skirt ride up around her hips. “Invite your crush to a group thing, then use it as an excuse to text and call him?” Parting her knees slightly, she beckons him over. “Leave friendly voice messages, _ just _ to check in?”

"I don’t think that’s why she invites me to study group,” he insists, sitting down at the foot of his bed. “You’d like Gwen if you got to know her. She's really nice, and super smart—she interns at OsCorp even though she's a sophomore like us, and isn't, like, Norman's protege."

MJ blinks at him and files that piece of information away.

“Not that you’re not super smart, too!” Peter rambles. “I mean, I think you’d like her because she’s smart as you.”

“I’m not jealous of Gwen,” she half-lies as she wraps her legs around him and nips his shoulder playfully. “I just wanted to get you alone to myself.” 

Settling himself on top of MJ, Peter gently cradles her face in his palms and starts kissing her all over her cheeks and neck. MJ smiles, and it feels like the symbiote is purring in her chest. 

His muscles are so thick and sinewy that she’s tempted to bite harder into his shoulder. But she tamps down the intrusive urge, which she attributes to the symbiote, and takes deep breaths instead, calming them both down. 

Propping himself up by his forearms, Peter looks down at her. “I didn't know what to tell her about… us. I haven't told anyone that we're together. Back together? I don't know.”

“Is that why Harry Osborn has been talking me up around ESU more than my own boyfriend?” she teases, but Peter just sulks.

“You told me to keep it low key about us,” he whines, giving her sad puppy eyes.

Lifting one shoulder to her ear, MJ shrugs lightly. “Meaning don't run around screaming about us at the top of your lungs, but… we're not a secret. I guess I just prefer to do the observing, instead of being the one observed.” 

But the idea of Peter telling everyone that he's with her, that they are together, does make MJ feel a certain way. Maybe she does want everyone to know. Her eyes flit back up to his, and she rests her palm against his jaw. 

She used to be so afraid of being caught under someone else’s scrutiny, to be judged and found wanting. Insufficient. But being with Peter feels like the one choice in her life that she is certain about now, the one familiar constant that she wants to hold onto for good. 

MJ makes a lot of noise that night, definitely more than usual, and Peter has to clamp his hand around her mouth the next time she screams his name, making shushing sounds in her ear. She still makes no effort to stifle her moans, squealing every time his hips move. 

“I.. can't… help it!” she pants, pushing back against him with each word. She probably can, but she just wants to make sure everyone on the floor knows: _ Peter belongs to us_.

It’s still dark out when MJ stirs awake later, and a warm satisfaction spreads throughout her body when she remembers where she is and who is tangled up with her on the extra-long twin bed, his face in the crook of her neck.

Throwing her arm over Peter, she presses her cheek against his bare chest and listens to his heartbeat. He doesn't stir, but he periodically clenches his jaw and frowns in his sleep. An overwhelming tenderness falls over her as she watches Peter, his lips are parted as his soft breath makes his chest rise and fall. 

_ I still have a crush on him_, she realizes fondly. The warm, bubbling jubilation when he's near her, when he responds to a text or calls her, when he catches her eye and breaks into a grin, eyes crinkling just for her—but does this feeling belong to her? Or is it because of the symbiote? Does it matter?

Before MJ can reach over to smooth his brow, a black tendril unfurls from her and starts inching toward his sleeping face. Her eyes go wide.

_ What are you doing? Stop that! You'll wake him up! _

_ We just want to touch a little, a little taste… _

She can feel the pull of the symbiote wanting to touch Peter. He snores lightly, completely unaware of the wandering black ooze reaching for him. 

_ You're going to freak him out! _

Ignoring her, the creature slithers out further until it is hovering an inch from Peter's face, then forms an almost-head to inspect his features. Michelle holds her breath, praying his Peter-tingle doesn't alert him. Fortunately, he doesn't stir at all, not even as Rage hovers close to him, sniffing curiously. 

_ He’s different. He’s stronger than all the other humans, more powerful. We want more of Peter, all the time! _

_ I'm working on it, goopy. _

_ Our name is Rage! _

_ Okay, Rage. Go to sleep. _

-*-

By the time the television in the diner is interrupted with an emergency news report of an unknown supervillain attacking midtown, Peter has already pressed a rushed kiss to the side of MJ’s head and hurried off, leaving her behind to finish what's left of their lunch.

The broadcast news replays cellphone videos that Peter and MJ already saw on their mobile feeds, the same jerky shot of the maniac dropping pumpkin-shaped bombs as he flies on a hover glider. She is crumpling up the last of their garbage and preparing to leave when new footage of the midtown attacker flashes on the television, and it stops MJ in her tracks.

The news station’s drone camera zooms in close to the cackling maniac, some self-proclaimed Green Goblin. With his protruding nose and chin, wild bulging eyes, and green scales, he reminds MJ of the test subjects she saw when she broke into the OsCorp laboratory last summer to find Peter. 

Could OsCorp be behind this attack? And is the Goblin one of the lab experiments that succeeded? They had managed to catch Peter unawares last time, even without knowing that he was Spider-Man; he could be walking into a trap right now if they've figured him out. In her rush to go and help him, MJ nearly runs a couple over on her way out of the diner.

With MTA subway and bus services to midtown suspended and every single cab trying to get _ away _ from the center of the chaos, MJ has no choice but to start jogging uptown, cursing her month-long food binge while grateful for her daily runs. _ Sex is also cardio _, she muses, stomping against the asphalt and blowing past crosswalk lights. 

_Do you need to go faster?_ Rage asks, stirring awake somewhere in her stomach. Sensing her assent before MJ could mentally respond, the symbiote lurches a thick tendril out of her chest that launches them up to the roof of the nearest building.

“Fuck!” MJ shouts out loud when she collapses on the hard tarred surface. “You can’t just do that in public like that! What if someone saw? They’ll think we’re the bad guys and try to hunt us down!”

_ Then we’ll crunch them up! No one hunts us. We do the hunting! _

MJ dusts herself off and takes a look around to make sure no one was watching them. 

_ Well, can you at least hide my face somehow? Can you make me a mask or goggles or something? _

The creature doesn’t respond, but she experiences a crawling sensation as tendrils of black ooze slither up her legs and torso. A thick lattice of veins reaches across her skin and over her clothes until MJ is completely enveloped in it, like a full body suit. 

Looking down at her hands, she stares in awe at the blackened claws in their place and the veiny muscles of her forearms. 

_ Whoa. _

She feels naked and exposed, but also impenetrably shielded inside the symbiote’s strange skin. Taking off running across the rooftop toward the nearest building, MJ reminds herself that she could normally make the running jump without Rage, but tries not to think about how she definitely couldn’t survive the fall. They make it to the other rooftop easily, so she doesn’t stop running, and they dash across several more buildings. 

Nearly missing a ledge when she tries to test how far Rage can leap, MJ also discovers that their tendrils can grow and stretch like arms and even be used to climb walls; that’s how she ends up hanging off the edge of that building by what looks like shiny black elongated sleeves. 

_ I think we’re getting the hang of this_, she thinks to Rage, scrambling up to the top with her weird newfound appendages. _ I just hope we get to Spider-Man in time. _

MJ arrives on the scene just as a large slab of cement debris comes hurtling through the air and into a storefront with cowering civilians, so she springs toward it and manages to smack it away from them. Getting her bearings, MJ turns to look at what everyone is staring at in the sky.

Crouching, the Green Goblin is hovering on some sort of glider while Spider-Man is perched on top of a flagpole.

“They think of you as the new Iron Man, the leader of the Avengers. Imagine the idiocy!” the supervillain scoffs shrilly. “When I am here, Iron Man’s true rival and equal, industrialist and accomplished scientist! The Green Goblin!” 

“Never heard of you!” Peter’s voice shouts back. "You need a better PR manager!"

“Iron Man was a coward, he chose death before he had to face me! The Green Goblin!”

_ Is this guy for real? This is the clown that caused all this damage? _

Crazy or not, MJ knows she has to get a hold of this Green Goblin. He must be the culmination of Norman's serum experiment; the monstrous deformities and deranged ranting are all too familiar, only dialed up by a factor of a hundred compared to the patients she studied. He may have the answers she is looking for, and just might be the link to Norman and OsCorp she needs.

The Green Goblin hurls an orange orb at Spider-Man, but he somersaults out of the way before it explodes and shoots a web at the Goblin’s glider. The Goblin evades Peter’s shot and flies through the air dropping more of those bombs, cackling.

Without warning, a swarm of those deformed-looking goons from the lab appear out of nowhere and come loping toward the civilians below. Caught between fighting the Green Goblin and saving the unarmed people, Spider-Man’s head turns back and forth, trying to decide what to do. 

_ We have to help! We can cover Spider-Man so he can deal with that green freak, _MJ decides, making her way toward the goon closest to the half dozen people cornered in a bank. 

But just as she is about to intercept it, she feels her entire body jerk back and swing into the air, further and further away from the bank entrance. The half-goblin she was going after is also being yanked through the air by a thick web, and the two of them are thrown skidding across the street.

Getting up to her feet, Rage roars furiously when she is suddenly shoved onto the ground again and a shadow falls over her face.

Crouched over her, Spider-Man pins her to the ground with his iron hold on her shoulders, his legs straddling and holding her hips in place. MJ fights to maintain control as the symbiote struggles against her, its flight instincts screaming in her bones as it tries to divert energy so they can escape Spider-Man’s grasp. But MJ keeps a tight grip on the reins; she needs Rage to keep its current form that’s covering her entire body—especially her face—so she doesn't give herself away. 

_ Just keep me—us—covered! He can’t know it's me, not yet, _MJ pleads with Rage.

_ He’s so strong! Very strong! Too strong... _

_ Just keep my face hidden. He won’t hurt us_, she promises, even though she’s not completely certain.

Squirming beneath him, MJ is astonished by how strong Peter really is, and this may not be the furthest extent of it. He always holds back with her because he has to—thinks he has to—and even their rougher play is just play to him; but now she is having a taste of his real strength and she can’t get enough of it. 

Testing his limits a bit further, MJ wriggles harder against Spider-Man, her muscles pumping and heart pounding furiously as delicious adrenaline rushes through her veins. 

“Don't move! Who are you?” Spider-Man shouts, tightening his hold on her. Rage likes the intensity of the emotions that are radiating from him, the way his heightened senses make him sense and feel _ everything _ around him all the time, and how he’s directing that focus onto _ her._

A shiver of déjà vu runs through her; lying beneath him like this, the black ooze all over her body. But she can't reach out for him, so she stays still.

“A friend,” she manages to say, but it comes out in a warped growling voice that sounds nothing like herself.

Unconvinced, Spider-Man leans away from her and makes to get up. “Well, no offense, but you don’t sound too friendly. Excuse me while I get back to the saving people and punching supervillains thing!” 

After webbing her against the ground, Spider-Man swings away toward the remaining goblins. Struggling against the webs, Rage momentarily exposes some of MJ’s arms and legs when it uses the biomass to form another tentacle and finally breaks free. 

Although exhausted from the effort, the symbiote has enough energy to reform around MJ’s body like a second skin, and she stretches her arms and legs to re-acclimate to the suit. She feels oddly safe cocooned inside of Rage, the way that Rage feels safe inside of her during the day, nestled beneath her ribs.

Spider-Man has drawn the goblin goons away from the civilians, giving them a chance to flee from the burning scene, but unfortunately that means he’s gotten himself cornered with scaffolding and falling debris behind him. 

“So unfortunate that it had to come to this, Spider-Man,” the Green Goblin crows as he hovers in the air. “But remember, you’ll have the privilege of being defeated by the greatest superhuman of all—”

“The Green Goblin!” Spider-Man shouts at the same time, dripping with sarcasm. “Jinx! Now can you cool it with your weirdo manifesto?”

He flicks his wrist and a web latches onto the Green Goblin’s glider, but the Goblin flies around a pole to tangle the webline and prevent Spider-Man from mooring his getaway.

“We are entering a new age, Spider-Man! If only you could see!” 

With that, the madman flies away, cackling. The remaining half-goblins converge on Spider-Man like a swarm, and his webs only manage to slow down half of them. There are so many of them—too many—but he doesn’t stop throwing out web after web, kicking and punching any who get too close.

Torn for a split-second between going after the Green Goblin and helping Spider-Man, MJ turns toward the panting red and blue figure. She realizes he’s only shooting from one arm, meaning his other webshooter might be damaged or out of fluid. 

MJ rushes toward him and wraps a tendril around one of the goblins to pull it away from Spider-Man, but the goblin bites down on the black ooze. It doesn’t hurt MJ but it angers Rage, who turnsMJ’s other arm into a hard pointed skewer the size of an umbrella, impaling the goon right through the leg to fling it away from her.

Looking back up at Spider-Man, she sees that the webbed goblins have somehow chewed off their ensnared limbs, and are now all hobbling towards Spider-Man, undeterred. She begins grabbing them with her tentacle arms and throwing them against the wall of the nearest building, again and again, but they keep getting up and surrounding Spider-Man on all sides.

_ Fuck, fuck, fuck! This is not how Spider-man dies! _She is not watching her boyfriend get taken down by a bunch of mindless science experiments gone wrong, MJ desperately hopes. 

Filled with fear and anger, she is paralyzed and doesn’t know what to do next, but Rage is guzzling up her emotional distress like fuel and takes over for them both. They leap down to stand beside Spider-Man as both arms harden into shiny black spears directed at the nightmarish creatures.

“Sorry I didn’t believe you when you said that you’re a friend,” he shouts over to her. “I’m Spider-Man! What’s your name?”

Rage frowns at him. “Is this really the time—”

Without warning, all the goblins explode simultaneously, as if a timer went off, leaving gory puddles of tissue and blood on the ground where they stood. Neither Rage nor Spider-Man move a muscle as they eye the carnage surrounding them. Everything is eerily quiet now, except for the sound of distant sirens coming closer. 

“Gross! I think I got goblin goop on my suit,” Spider-Man exclaims, hopping backwards. He turns to look at her, and MJ realizes he's trying to lighten the mood, maybe for her. But in the quiet aftermath filled with smoke and death, she remembers that she lost her chance to interrogate anyone who would know anything.

“The Goblin got away! He was mine!” MJ snarls in Rage's voice, morphing a tendril into a clenched black fist and smashing it against the side of the building, sending broken concrete into the air. 

“Whoa there, buddy! We’re on the same side here! I wanna stop him, too,” Spider-Man says, holding his hands out appeasingly.

She shakes her head vigorously. “We don’t want to stop him. We must destroy him!”

“Hey, easy now, if there's one thing I've learned it's that the villains _ always _ come back,” he says. “Are you new to this superheroing vigilante stuff? I haven’t seen you around before. I want to help you, and I know other people that can help you, too.”

She wants to tell him the truth, to tell him everything, but how will he react? Will he really turn her into S.H.I.E.L.D or the Avengers if he knew?

“No! Don't tell anyone about us,” Rage exclaims, almost pleading, but the growling voice still sounds terrifying. “We need time… to get used to all this… please.”

Spider-Man eyes her warily, the white lenses adjusting to focus on her expressionless face, but he eventually nods. “Alright."

However he doesn't move, and just stands there with his arms crossed, assessing her. 

“Why are you looking at us like that?” Rage asks, all the tendrils and extraneous limbs having retracted back into its shiny black biomass suit. Twisting left and right to inspect herself, MJ thinks she almost looks like a regular woman in a full-body bondage suit like this. 

“I have this ability to sense threats, but it didn't detect you at all,” says Spider-Man, scratching his masked chin. “Even before when I was, uh, holding you down…” He coughs and continues quickly, “Because I thought you were maybe one of those exploding goblin things. Sorry. I guess that means you're not dangerous to me?”

Rage grins wide, baring two rows of fangs.

“Whoa! That's terrifying, though.”

She clamps her jaws shut immediately and Rage's face returns to a mouthless black mask with two white almond shaped eyes the size of her fists, based on what she can see reflected in Spider-Man’s eye lenses. Her shoulders slump down dejectedly and she turns away from him, wounded.

“Oh, no! I'm sorry, I didn't mean—I mean it's not a bad thing! Terrifying is cool!” 

“Just messing with you,” Rage replies in its deep gravelly voice. 

Peter looks up at her and cocks his head to the side as he contemplates her for a moment. But then he shakes his head to himself and motions for her to follow him, taking off and swinging across to the next building.

"Come on, let's see if you can keep up!" He shouts back, soaring through the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos and comments so far!
> 
> What should Rage/MJ (or MJenom lol) do? Where should they go from here? Let me know what you think!
> 
> Find me on the [Tumblr @machiavelien](https://machiavelien.tumblr.com/) :3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter apologizes for being late, and MJ apologizes for being impatient.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: [Far by So Below](https://open.spotify.com/track/1IOs762eCSNHXckS0muIce?si=2KRlG0pgS-GBzNruwDa09w)
> 
> Happy Halloween! I had hoped to have gotten to Halloween in the story by now, but... didn't.

_ "Last year I abstained_   
_ this year I devour_

_ without guilt_   
_ which is also an art" _

_ —Margaret Atwood, You are Happy_

_ -*-_

Spending the rest of the afternoon tagging along with Spider-Man as he patrols, MJ finds it thrilling to see him in action up-close. Unlike watching from afar or through a screen, fighting side-by-side with him really lets her appreciate what it takes to be Spider-Man.

She admires the amount of control he has over his movements, even though he makes it all appear spontaneous and effortless. Meanwhile, the symbiote just gets excited watching him forcibly subdue their opponents into submission.

Spider-Man teaches Rage how he goes about patrolling, sharing some vigilante pointers that range from practical advice (“Remember to start with crowd control, and always leaving an exit for retreat”), to philosophical musings (“Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they can’t see you”). 

At first, Rage has difficulty calibrating how much strength is needed for a particular situation or opponent, since she’s only been used to not-hitting or fatally-hitting, so far. She ended up knocking a few thugs off a rooftop when they were busting a drug deal, and Spider-Man actually had to save the criminals from plummeting to their deaths. 

It was so _ embarrassing _that she didn’t mind when he made apologies for his ‘rookie’ (“First day on the job, you know how it goes... am I right? It’s like, incoming! Watch out for the student driver!”).

Next time, Rage just suffocates the assailant with one tendril wrapped around his neck until he falls unconscious. She looks to Spider-Man for approval and he gives her a thumbs up before rolling into another kick and webbing the last of the robbers together. They leave the unconscious criminals webbed-up for the police and start heading back uptown.

MJ used to find swinging with Spider-Man terrifying and panic-attack inducing. But now, as she chases Spider-Man across rooftops, her symbiote arms extending like a rope in lieu of webs, she can’t imagine a better way to traverse the city than swinging across the skies. She feels untouchable, and in total control.

Between the thrill of the chase and Spider-Man’s excitement to share all of this with her, MJ's heart feels ready to burst, and the symbiote courses through her veins happily. 

MJ is supposed to be meeting Peter at a vegan Italian place in the Lower East Side, but their dinner reservation was for an hour ago, and she has been sitting alone at their table for the last half of it. At least the ease and speed of her costume change is a distinct advantage of the symbiote “suit.” 

_ Score one for Rage, zero for Spider-Man_, she thinks smugly as she savors another bite of molten chocolate cake.

_ Cake! More cake! _ Rage demands.

Adrenaline is still pumping through her body from the fight with the Green Goblin and Rage's first encounter with Spider-Man. The symbiote is completely drained, famished from the exertion of fighting and concealing MJ's form, so it greedily sucks up the last of the emotional juice left in her body. MJ knows loud dorm sex won't be enough to satiate it—her—_ them _ tonight. 

Soon, they'll both be ravenous and start to hunt, and MJ doesn't know how to control Rage yet when it gets like that. Chocolate could only soothe it for a little while, not fill the sudden and severe depletion of phenethylamine and whatever else the symbiote needs from feeding. 

It's too bad the failed goblin experiments exploded like they did—not only did she lose potential evidence, Rage could have eaten a few of them if they were going to die anyway. 

The callous thought disturbs MJ, and she tries to shake it off. Can a starving animal really be callous? Is the symbiote the animal, or is it her? She isn’t even sure if Rage’s consciousness can exist outside of her, and whether that means it's a part of Michelle, or if they, together, have become something else entirely. 

_ Why did you have to choose between covering me in the suit and escaping Spider-Man? _She asks Rage, trying to piece together what she can. There's so much she doesn't know about the symbiote, and she doesn't even know where to start finding answers that don't involve OsCorp.

_ Not enough biomass to do both. Need to eat more. More! _

More biomass? So she has to keep eating if she wants to get stronger and bigger, not just keep the symbiote fed?

She watches the dark shapes that appeared when she got agitated, pulsing along the back of her hand then sinking back into her skin, writhing then disappearing. Then she is just Michelle Jones again—an ordinary girl with ordinary appetites. 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Peter gasps, running into the restaurant with his suit jacket hanging over his shoulder. His shirt is also off by one button, a smudge of shaving cream just below his ear. “Lost track of time on patrol after that crazy thing in midtown, and you would not believe who I met today—”

Licking the fudge off her spoon, MJ glares at him silently. He bites his lip to stem his rambling. 

“I'm sorry. I’m the worst boyfriend ever.” Peter shakes his head to clear it and takes a moment to compose himself, then looks back up at MJ with his hands clasped together. “You're visiting for only a few days, and I spent all of today out patrolling, and now I'm late—”

“It's okay, dork. Really. I saw the news,” says MJ, closing her hand around his, mostly to still his fidgeting but also for the way his face lights up like she just hung the moon for him. “But you do owe me one. A _ big _one.”

A smile tugs at his lips and she knows he's debating with himself whether a punny joke would be worth her ire after he had just dodged that bullet. She skips ahead for him and starts running her foot along the inseam of his leg beneath the table, gazing at him intently. 

“I mean it," she says. "Show me how sorry you are.”

Peter comes up for air again, but only after an impressive amount of time with his mouth and tongue in her cunt. Licking her juices off his lips, he looks up at MJ, and she nods excitedly. 

As they maneuver and wedge themselves in the cramped restaurant bathroom, Peter effortlessly lifts MJ up by the ass so she can wrap her legs around his waist. He takes her right there against the wall, rutting into her hard and fast. The sink rattles with their movements, and MJ moans loudly, pulling at his hair and raking her nails along his scalp and down his back, hungrily clutching at the muscles along his chest and arms. 

They freeze when someone knocks at the door. Peter croaks out, “Occupied! For a… while!” 

MJ giggles, and he clamps a hand around her mouth until he’s satisfied that the knocker has left. Soon, the wet sounds of their frenzied fucking and hot panting fill the tiled room again, and they hurl dirty insults back and forth. 

“Your pussy feels so good when it's milking my cock,” he whispers hoarsely in her ear. Peter is actually the dirty talker between the two of them, and it amuses him to no end to fluster her with a whisper in public. 

But what is she supposed to do with those kinds of words coming out of Peter Parker’s mouth? And it has taken MJ years—and a ravenous possibly-alien parasite—to get comfortable with reciprocating. 

“You’ve ruined me with that thick cock of yours,” she hisses back, holding onto him by the neck. “Nothing fills me like you do...” 

The symbiote shivers and ripples inside her, and she feels like she is going to explode from all the sensations filling her at the same time. MJ pants hard, wisps of hair sticking to her forehead, and she can feel a trickle of sweat running down her neck and in between her breasts.

“Yes! Please, fuck… fuck... fuck me! Peter!” MJ manages, becoming less and less coherent by the second. 

With a loud groan, Peter comes hard inside her and tangles his fingers in her hair, sweeping the bangs away from her face while they catch their breaths. 

“So, am I off the hook for missing dinner?" He pants. "Because this punishment system may not work out like you intended, Em.”

-*-

“They're like Spider-Man, but cooler and edgier!” Ned exclaims, scrolling through Spider-Man’s body camera for footage of the mysterious vigilante that calls itself Rage. 

Peter huffs. “Hey! Spider-Man’s YouTube channel has over a million subscribers!”

Ned sighs, shaking his head. “Peter. We don't know how many of those are just Russian bots.”

As Peter recounts his encounter with Rage, Ned listens with rapt attention while MJ pretends to be disinterested and focused on her homework instead. They're sprawled out in Peter's room on a Saturday night, like they used to do in highschool, which Ned dubbed official 'Friends of Spider-Man' meetings. 

“According to the Sokovia Accords, I'm technically supposed to report Rage for registration,” Peter continues, folding his arms behind his head. “But I really don’t want to. I’m not even registered myself."

“I thought the Sokovia Accords are only for, like, Avengers or other big time superheroes,” says Ned as he alternates between zooming in on clips of Rage and gasping. "Isn't that why you didn't want to join the Avengers full time?"

Peter shakes his head. “I mean, yeah. But any 'enhanced individual' who violates the Accords can be arrested and detained indefinitely without trial. That includes vigilantism and preventing anyone from enforcing the Accords, by the way."

“So, like, a total human rights violation,” says MJ, shutting her textbook closed. “And Spider-Man has been flagrantly violating the Accords for years. Someone out to get you could just claim that you’re an unregistered super-powered public menace and get you locked up indefinitely.”

Nodding grimly, Peter adds, "But as long as Spider-Man stays on the ground and only deals with local crime—"

“And remains a friendly _ neighborhood _Spider-Man,” says MJ, catching on, “then you wouldn’t be worth an international organization’s effort to hunt down.” But he is still dancing on the edge of a knife, and Rage might be enough to tip him over the wrong side if MJ isn’t careful. 

“Exactly," says Peter. "That’s why I hope Rage stays under the radar. They're _ super _strong, way more than they realize, and definitely the kind of ‘enhanced individual’ that S.H.I.E.L.D. or the government would want to take in and get under control." 

“That is pretty messed up,” Ned agrees. “It’s like Minority Report. Preemptively punishing someone before they even commit a crime?” 

The idea of submitting herself to a faceless organization that will poke and prod at her body—or worse—makes MJ's blood run cold. What would they do to her? What if they try to take the symbiote from her? The thought alone causes anger to flare in her gut, burning up her fear and leaving a fierce sense of protectiveness.

Peter affirms her fears and goes on to explain how Rage would likely have to submit to a power analysis so that S.H.I.E.L.D could categorize their threat level, and Rage would subsequently have to wear a tracker at all times.

“Fuck that,” MJ interjects, almost too passionately. “Is this actually in the Accords? That's some big brother bullshit.” 

MJ ruminates on Spider-Man’s powerlessness, despite all of his superpowers. He couldn't even enjoy a summer vacation without S.H.I.E.L.D. pulling on his leash, and he won't be able to protect her and Rage if they're found out. 

But their existence alone is already putting him at risk and he doesn't even know it. MJ wants to tell Peter the truth about her and the symbiote, but she doesn’t know how or when—and she can’t take it back once she does. Would it be better or worse if he knew? Would he be even more obligated to turn her in? 

He wouldn't, though. She knows he wouldn't. But that might get him into even more trouble, and MJ refuses to let that happen. 

She is going to keep her head down, and make sure Rage stays hidden. How hard could that be? 

-*-

Sliding into the seat across from Gwen in the library, MJ leans over towards her, shoulders hunched menacingly, and taps on the table. "Gwen. Hey."

The other woman startles, her blue eyes blinking in bewilderment. "Michelle? Oh, hi! What's up?" She shifts nervously in her seat, tucking her hair behind ear. "Is there, um, anything I can help you with?"

MJ narrows her eyes but doesn't say anything, trying to get a read on Gwen's emotions: alert and wary, laced with guilt. Interesting. She’s also mildly impressed with Gwen for not talking to fill the silence.

"You’ve interned at OsCorp?" MJ finally says. 

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Yes!" Gwen replies, fidgeting with a pink highlighter in her hands. "I interned there last summer, but also during the school year, kind of. It's not a regular schedule, but I still go in to check on some of my projects. It's not paid or anything, during the year, but I'm glad I can maybe see some experiments to the end, and the goal is a full time offer for after graduation anyway. Or at least another internship next summer..."

MJ nods slowly along with Gwen as she speaks a mile a minute. So much for not talking to fill the silence.

"Why are you so nervous?" She interrupts when Gwen starts to spiral further. 

"What do you-uh, I don't know—"

"You're kinda babbling. And your eyes and mouth do this thing—" MJ motions at Gwen's face and mimics her pouty expression. "Like a scared bunny or something, to evoke discomfort and pity."

"I-I don't know why my face is like that," Gwen mumbles, touching her cheek absentmindedly. "I'm not trying to—I mean…"

"I'm just messing with you," says MJ, when Gwen looks like she's about to implode. 

She takes one of Gwen's pens and twirls it between her fingers, putting off what she came here to say. The symbiote can still smell Gwen's nervousness and guilt, as if she did something bad and is anticipating the fallout—she probably feels that way because of her crush on Peter.

But as much as MJ is supposed to dislike Gwen for it, she can't. After all, Peter is very likeable and crush-worthy_—_MJ would know better than anyone_—_and Gwen also reminds her too much of him: kind, smart, earnest.

Also just like Peter, Gwen is super fun to mess with.

"I'm sorry about the other day," MJ finally says, fighting her instinct to look away from Gwen's puzzled face. "I was being weird. And kinda acting like a dick."

Relief washes over Gwen's face, and she shakes her head. "That's okay,” she replies. “If I recall, you were acting more like... an impatient pussy, than a dick."

That earns a surprised laugh out of MJ. "Hah. Fair enough. Anyway, I gotta go catch my bus back to Cambridge, but…" MJ isn't sure what she's really trying to say to Gwen.

"I'm glad we talked," Gwen offers, smiling easily. 

"Yes. That." MJ points a finger gun at Gwen and winks. "It was nice meeting you. Properly this time."

"Same here," replies Gwen, genuinely. "Be careful on the way back! Traffic might still be a mess from that Goblin attack in midtown on Saturday. Bet you're glad you don't live in this crazy city anymore, huh?"

-*-

Sometimes, when MJ doesn't think he's watching, Peter sees her attention drift somewhere else, far away, with sorrow lingering in her eyes. He knows that look, and maybe she's caught sight of the same cloud of grief in him before.

But when she catches him looking, her sadness melts into a soft smile, and she comes back to him from wherever her mind has wandered. But it's that split-second before she sees him, when her heart is closed off and her face is hard, that Peter wonders what is really going on in her mind.

MJ's hand is cold when he reaches for it while they wait for her bus back to Harvard. But he threads his fingers in between hers and squeezes, willing the heat from his body to transfer to her hands and warm them up. She squeezes back and looks over at him, smiling shyly.

It gets him every time when she does that, when she lets the softness unexpectedly come through. Peter waits for a snarky comment, but MJ just lays her head against his shoulder as her bus pulls up to the curb, and when he looks down at their hands clasped together, he's so happy he can't breathe.

When he’s alone with the lights off, Peter lets his mind drift back to her—always back to her. His sheets still smell like MJ, but she's already hundreds of miles away, and all he has are fantasies of her and desires he won't even admit to himself. 

MJ insists that she has liked him since before the Blip, that she's been watching him for longer than she initially let on; Peter thinks she's just trying to make him feel better about being so embarrassingly infatuated with her. But he really likes the idea of MJ wanting him, chasing after him, _ hunting _ him down.

Reaching into his boxers, Peter envisions her lean waist and narrow hips swaying as she sits on his cock, her willowy arms holding him down, thighs squeezed around his hips. He imagines all the things he wants to do to her, and all the things he wants her to do to him.

Gripping himself tight, Peter thinks of her hot mouth, pink and soft, opening for him, those brown eyes looking up at him as she sucks him off.

He thinks back to the last time they were together, to MJ unbuttoning his shirt, slowly working her way down his chest, the softness of her hands as they ran all over him.

"Can't wait to eat you up," she said huskily, pulling his shirt off. 

There's something different about MJ lately. Instead of her usual aloofness and reserved affection, she's been more aggressive and direct. Demanding and hungry-eyed, she literally jumped him when they first saw each other after the summer, and dragged him to the floor on top of her. 

It had felt so good to be wanted, to be craved for himself and not Spider-Man, and to know he could drive MJ wild like that. Peter grips his cock tighter, thinking about how hard and fast they had fucked on her dorm floor, his jeans barely unzipped before she had grabbed his cock and guided it inside her.

With a strangled groan, Peter finishes in his hand, letting thick hot cum run down his fist as he gasps and rides out his orgasm. Then the tight coil of anxiety that usually sits in his chest is gone, at least for a little while, and he feels like he has been unfurled and spread open; his beating heart is exposed and waiting for her to come and finish him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Turns out this fic is just fluff. And smut. Mostly. And subtext yummm
> 
> Thank you for the kudos and comments, I'm loving all your ideas so far, keep throwing them my way! 
> 
> Is MJ in too deep? Should she tell Peter the truth? When and how??


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The monsters come out for Halloween.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Track: [Closer by Nine Inch Nails (AHZ remix) ](https://youtu.be/00Or-vy9ifQ)
> 
> Thank you for all the comments and kudos on the last chapter, you guys are the best! External validation totally works on me, so here's another chapter since the last one was shorter than usual 😘
> 
> This chapter references events from the previous fic, namely when the Daily Bugle published a photo of MJ kissing Spider-Man that went viral ([Chapter 3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19467883/chapters/46366426#workskin) and  
[Chapter 5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19467883/chapters/47110726) if you want a refresh).

_ "I want to be the kind of monster you _

_ don’t want to fuck—" _

_ —Ana Božičević, Casual Elegy for Luka Skračić _

-*-

"Holy cow, it’s been a crazy month! I fought another supervillain yesterday! Maybe because Halloween is coming up?" Peter is talking a mile a minute over video chat as he changes out of his Spidey suit. "This one called himself the Freak, and he was definitely freaky looking, like an animal-hybrid with sharp claws and fangs. Oh! And acidic saliva, and he shot toxic spores from his body!" 

MJ nods along while she catches up on some homework, enjoying the sound of his voice. Unwrapping the foil around his dinner, Peter starts walking up the wall as he continues telling MJ about his latest confrontation. Ever since the Goblin's attack, supervillains have been attacking the city every week, and the latest is this Freak. 

“I fought him in some abandoned building that turned out to be a meth lab, but then the building somehow caught on fire, so Freak created this weird cocoon thing, which made him fireproof and even stronger! Then he emerged as this armadillo-like thing and tried to kill me again."

Peter takes a bite of falafel sandwich and continues talking with his mouth full, telling her about how Spider-Man tricked Freak into forming a chrysalis again and poured quicklime over it to incapacitate him until he was taken away by a hazmat crew.*

“What's up with all these B-list villains coming after Spider-Man?” MJ asks, not looking up from her problem-set.

Peter walks along the wall again and stops when he's hanging upside down from the ceiling. “I don’t know, but I don’t think they’re on their own. Someone is sending them.”

MJ glances up when the blue and red spandex finally disappears and Peter's chiseled chest and abs fill the screen instead. 

_ Chomp chomp! Delicious meat boy! _

Ignoring the symbiote, MJ asks, “What makes you think that?”

Still shirtless but now wearing flannel sweatpants, Peter resumes pacing up and down the walls, deep in contemplation. "Freak said he tracked me down by scent, so he was specifically looking for Spider-Man. But he also said something about also getting the ‘other one.’ I think he meant Rage, but I haven’t seen them around since the Green Goblin fight.”

MJ feels her face pale. Someone sent Freak to look for Rage? Were the other supervillains that came before Freak also looking for the creature—looking for _ her_? And Spider-Man had to bear the brunt of all these attacks, alone, while she's hundreds of miles away. 

_ As if he needs another target on his back, _ MJ thinks with dismay.

Guilt gnaws at her as she watches Peter eating his falafel sandwich, blithely unaware that his girlfriend is why he's been getting attacked by suped-up criminals all month. She should be in New York and dealing with her own mess, not leaving it to Peter to clean up, _ especially _ if it's OsCorp behind it all. What's the point of laying low if Spider-Man is getting targeted because of her?

Dropping her pen, MJ looks up at him on her laptop screen. “Do you have any plans for Halloween, loser?”

_ -*- _

After her shift at the library, MJ heads to a secluded lot out back where university staff rarely park; it’s poorly lit, and dangerous things could be lurking out there. That’s where she and Rage practice extending and controlling their joint limbs, with the symbiote wrapping itself along her arms and stretching out as thick, black tendrils. 

She knows she needs to be ready for the next fight, which means getting better control over herself and Rage. They just got lucky last time; if those goblins weren't set to explode, she's not sure if she and Peter would have made it out of there. 

MJ gradually gets used to the sensation of having immense power flowing through her body, and then beyond her through these tendrils. Next, she tries to change and control the form of her symbiote suit. She flexes her fingers, trying to recall what the Black Cat's razor sharp talons looked like. Seeing into her hazy memories, the symbiote forms itself around her hand to transform into claws.

“That is so fucking cool,” MJ gasps, examining her new weapons as they retract and extend according to her will. They’re starting to get the hang of their bond, and she feels a little better about confronting whatever is waiting for her in New York, but she's still afraid it's not enough.

On the way back to her dorm, the bells of Lowell toll, sending a shiver of pain that wracks MJ's entire body and leaves her skull ringing. Shuddering, she crouches on the ground with her arms wrapped around her head and against her ears to dull the reverberating ringing. 

_ Urgh! My head is killing me! You really don't like high pitched noises, do you? _

The symbiote splits and scatters apart inside her, too scared and confused to respond, and about ready to jump out of her body. But MJ holds onto it tightly inside her chest, letting Rage be soothed by the deep thumping of her heartbeat until the bells stop ringing. 

_ It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m right here, Rage. _

-*-

Towards the end of the six-hour bus ride to New York, MJ works on her cat-eye makeup and bright red lipstick, all the while giving Rage mental pep talks, which are mostly reminders to keep their shit together. 

_ Just like, be cool, okay? _

_ We are cool. We are always cool. The symbiote's ideal temperature for homeostasis is eighty six— _

_ Stop being sassy with me, goopy. _

_ So grouchy tonight, Michelle. Didn't you want us to be 'cool'? _

The symbiote is starting to pick up her attitude, and MJ isn’t sure if she likes that.

Her bus doesn’t get in until late on Halloween night, so her plan is to meet up with Peter, Ned, and Betty at an ESU frat house to pregame their night out. Although she’s not looking forward to getting packed into a very small, loud, sweaty, dark space, MJ is ready with earplugs for Rage's sake. 

The frat house is in a narrow old brownstone that's packed with costumed college coeds constantly streaming in and out. Michelle squeezes herself through the crowd, ignoring the guys eyeing her body hugging catsuit as she passes by.

“Meow! Scratch me up, baby!”

"Need someone to take care of that pussy?"

Rolling her eyes, MJ squares her shoulders wide and takes advantage of her full height, taking up the space that should belong to her. Stomping with purpose toward the back of the house, she half hopes some idiot is stupid enough to try and grope her so she can practice breaking fingers tonight.

_ Eyes! Lungs! Pancreas! So many snacks, so little time! _ Rage exclaims, swirling inside her with agitated excitement.*_* _

_ I like that about you, goopster. You're always thinking about the glass as half full_.

Ignoring the whistles and creepy drunken passes at her, MJ keeps looking ahead without seeing anything, trying to avoid eye contact with everyone until she can find her friends. The quiet, introverted girl within her squirms uncomfortably at all the attention, desperate to hide or disappear into the crowd, while the rabid symbiote wants to reach out and snarl at all of them to leave her alone. 

When she sees some drunk guy come stumbling straight at her, red-faced and shouting incoherently, MJ turns abruptly out of the hallway, but collides into someone. A hand reaches around her waist to catch her before she falls, palm flat against the small of her back, making the symbiote suit tingle.

“Oh. Hey,” he says. When she recognizes his voice, MJ smiles for the first time all day. 

Peter is wearing one of those cheap plastic Batman masks that Duane Reade sells around Halloween season, plus a regular black fitted t-shirt and dark jeans. He looks delicious.

“Hi. I’m surprised a nerd like you didn’t dress up at all," says MJ, pretending to smooth out his shirt as if the entire chest and shoulder areas are wrinkled. "Halloween is, like, when even the normals cosplay with us freaks.”

“I dress up in a costume every night,” he says wryly. “I just wanna be boring Peter Parker tonight, hanging out with my normal friends.” His eyes drift down to MJ’s costume, and the little look of awe he tries to conceal makes her want to drag him somewhere private. "Are you dressed up as who I think—?"

"You _know_ I'm Eartha Kitt's Catwoman, who is _ not _ the trending sexy costume this year, thank you very much. Though the untrained eye may mistake me for the Black Cat." She takes his hands and puts them on her hips. She’s rather proud of Rage for the detailed touches on the costume, from the non-functioning utility belt to the cat ears and eye mask.

Running his hands up and down MJ's sides, Peter smiles, eyes twinkling beneath the black mask, and replies in a silly gruff voice, “Well, _ I'm Batman_.”

During their search for Betty and Ned, Peter and MJ end up on the edge of the dance floor in the packed frat house, and have to shimmy and half-dance their way around the writhing bodies of costumed college students. Peter is trailing behind her, and the symbiote can feel the want and lust radiating from him as he watches her backside in the tight black suit.

"Come on, Peter. Let your hair down. They're playing our song," says MJ, taking his hand and pulling him onto the dancefloor.***

"Our song is the Monster Mash?" Peter shouts over the music, straining to catch the lyrics.

Turning around, MJ palms his hard-on over his jeans with her free hand and squeezes. "Show me your _monster_, Peter, and I'll show you mine," she says hotly in his ear, making his breath hitch. 

He exhales the breath he was holding when she lets go of his hand. MJ spins away from him, and he follows her deeper into the crowd where the music is louder, the floor rumbling beneath her feet and vibrating through her bones. Her earplugs muffle the high pitches, but the suit still shivers at the rush of sound waves vibrating in the air around them.

MJ stops short in the middle of the crowd, and Peter grunts when he bumps into her. The sweaty bodies of strangers grind and push them up against each other. 

"Oof, the ol' web-shooter's feeling really snug all of a sudden," Peter chokes out.

"I can help you with that," says MJ, turning around and pressing herself against him. 

Peter groans, eyes pleading. "As incredible as that feels, that's really not helping."

His eyes go even wider when he feels her fingers unzip his fly, and he grabs her wrist to stop her from going further. 

It _ has _ to be the symbiote making her act this way; Michelle Jones would never do something this trashy in public. But the symbiote is craving the adrenaline rush from being caught, or maybe watched, and maybe Michelle doesn't mind it either.

"No fair," Peter whispers, taking her hand off his crotch. "No one can tell how wet _ you _ are." 

"What makes you think I'm wet?"

"I know you are," he replies cheekily, snaking a hand to her lower back and pulling her close.

Rage shivers in delight as Peter runs his palms all over the black suit, unwittingly caressing the symbiote suit as he feels up his girlfriend. 

"Your hands feel really good," MJ says in his ear, guiding his hands up to cup her breasts. 

He inhales sharply, eyes darkening, but doesn’t move his hands away. "I like the suit on you."

"The suit likes you, too," she replies, her red lips curled into a wry grin.

Throughout the night they encounter a ton of Spider-Man costumes, of course, but this year some of them are accompanied by their own Girl Who Kissed Spider-Man. Peter's eyes widen when one of those couples reenacts the infamous kiss while the party crowd cheers them on, and he turns around to give Michelle a look of bewildered amusement. 

They were a freaking internet meme last summer that has now turned into this year's most popular couple's Halloween costume. 

It makes MJ glad her Catwoman costume includes a mask—especially when the kissing couple starts to engage in a raunchier make-out session to the crowd's chants of "Go Spidey go!"

When the Girl's black tank top comes off, Peter coughs and leads MJ away and back downstairs.

They also pass by a few Black Cats, but MJ notes with satisfaction that there aren't as many of her as there are of the Girl Who Kissed Spider-Man. That's probably because it's easier to get a hold of a black tank top and pair of jeans than it is to get a latex catsuit. Whatever, that still means Michelle is winning, objectively, and she's certain Felicia would have to agree.

When they get to the back porch where the keg is set up, Peter makes a face. Harry Osborn is dancing on a table, wearing a tattered Native American chief headdress and Spider-Man onesie, sloshing beer out of a solo cup in his hand.

“Yeah, I was getting crap for it at Coachella, too, but then I forgot about it,” Harry shrugs when Michelle rags on him about the headdress. Eyeing her up and down, he nods approvingly. "Looking good, Michelle. Always knew you had it in you—every hot girl has a slutty costume side. You're wasting it on Parker, though."

"Thanks," Peter says sarcastically, not-so-subtly throwing an arm around MJ’s shoulders. 

"Just telling it like I see it, buddy," Harry shoots back without breaking eye contact with Peter.

_ Make them fight! Peter will crush his puny bones! _

_ No. You're almost as bad as the dudes and their egos, Rage. Settle down. _

The two men continue to stare each other down, but they look ridiculous doing it in their costumes. Harry tries to stress his height advantage while Peter glowers at him and flexes, emphasizing the broadness of his shoulders and chest. MJ can almost smell the testosterone in the air, acrid like an electrical fire, and scrunches her face in disgust.

Harry eventually relents, scoffing, "Come on, Pete. Lighten up. Can't you take a joke?" 

"Batman doesn't have a sense of humor, only a sense of justice," Peter quips back, and MJ catches how his lips twitch from trying not to smirk.

"Whatever," says Harry, losing interest in Peter when he can't get a rise out of him. His gaze slides back to MJ instead, and he flashes her a sly smile. "Isn't Black Cat supposed to be with Spider-Man anyway? Especially since he dumped what's-her-face that kissed him..."

Knowing he's just trying to get her to engage directly, MJ doesn't bother telling Harry that she's supposed to be Catwoman, or deny that she ever dated Spider-Man. She just stares back at him impassively through her mask.

"I don't blame the guy, though," Harry continues, pretending to ignore Peter's hand on her shoulder. "Black Cat is smoking _hot_. Man, what I'd do to give that pussy a scratch!” 

Peter glares at Harry. “You know, Black Cat's an actual person under the costume and everything.”

“There's other stuff under her costume I'm more interested in,” Harry winks and elbows Peter, whose brows are still knit together in distaste. “Ugh, Pete, you're no fun at all.”

"Yo, Osborn!” A guy in a polo shirt and 'Female Body Inspector' jacket yells over at them. “You gotta come see this kid about to get himself fucked up! He's totally trashed. Trying to climb out the fire escape like he’s fuckin’ Spider-Man or some shit—"

With a heavy sigh, Peter squeezes MJ's hand and heads for the fire escape, shaking his head as he tries to prevent the party from ending with an emergency visit from EMTs or the police. 

“By the way, Parker, Spider-Man can totally kick Batman's ass!” Harry yells after Peter.

Turning to MJ when they're alone, he positions himself to corner her away from the rest of the room, his arm resting on the wall behind her.

“Michelle, why haven’t we hooked up yet?" Harry is a petulant and whiny drunk. “What does Peter have that I don't? Or is it because of Spider-Man? Are you fucking Spider-Man?!”

Her eyes narrow into a withering stare. “Dude, that whole Bugle thing was like the beginning of last summer, are you still on that?” MJ scoffs dismissively. But the conversation is veering into dangerous territory, with Harry mentioning Spider-Man and Peter in the same breath.

“So you _ are _ fucking him!” Harry’s voice is triumphant, but his eyes are mean and filled with irritation. 

“Yeah, you got me. I'm fucking an Avenger whose face I've never seen,” she deadpans, wrapping her arms around herself. 

“Aw, don’t do that, the whole sarcastic bitch bit,” he drawls, leaning in close to her. “You’re cuter when you play nice, like at New Year's. More... likeable.”

"I don't give a shit about being likeable, least of all to you," she grits back, feeling the symbiote stir in the base of her skull. 

“In case you forgot, _you_ came onto _me_ first, at _ my _ party at _ my _ place,” slurs Harry, pointing at her with his solo cup. "All hot and thirsty for a piece of this—"

“I was just trying to get over Peter at New Year's,” she snaps, half-lying.

She had actually been after information about OsCorp and his father Norman, but a part of her did wonder if she could have a normal college party experience, flirt with a stranger, and have fun with someone who wasn't Peter.

“You still should.”

MJ presses her lips together into a hard line.

Seeing her remain unmoved, Harry drops his pouting face and glares at her venomously. "What does Parker have that's so special?" 

"If you have to ask, then you don't have it," she replies coolly, glancing over his shoulder to look for her friends. 

"I'm serious," he continues, getting into her face to block her from the rest of the room. "You know who I am, I could give you anything you want. Treat you the way a girl like you deserves to be treated."

Michelle takes a step backward but her back hits the wall behind them, and the prickly feeling of being cornered crawls all over her skin. Sensing her agitation, Rage ripples against the outside of her skin, her costume itching to spring out and punch Harry in the face.

_ No, we can't, Rage. There are too many people here. Keep our head down, remember? _

While MJ is distracted with calming down Rage, Harry grabs her by the waist and kisses her hard on the mouth, pushing his tongue between her lips.

Michelle squirms and shoves him away from her harder than she means to, making him fly backwards and fall into the people behind him, but luckily he's too drunk to notice anything unusual about the force of her push. 

“Fuck off, asshole!” She rubs her mouth with her forearm, trying to get rid of the taste of beer from Harry’s mouth. 

Getting back on his feet, Harry sways a bit unevenly but still throws his head back and laughs, pointing at his red and blue costume. "Oh come on, aren't you the Girl Who Kissed Spider-Man?! Gotta hold onto your title somehow."

_ Can we crunch him now?! It will be so easy…!_

_ Don’t fucking tempt me right now, Rage. _

Anger and embarrassment burns through MJ, and she jerks her arm away when he tries to reach for her wrist. “Don't touch me.”

_ Let him! We'll chomp his hands off! It won't kill him, don't need hands to survive. _

"Can't help it when you're dressed like that," Harry replies, blissfully unaware of how close he is from disfigurement. 

He seems to enjoy her reaction, which makes her feel trapped inside her own defenses; her usual acerbic remarks and hostile attitude just draw Harry in rather than put him off, as if they make her a unique challenge worth conquering. 

"Don't pretend you don't know what you look like in that outfit, the message you're sending to every guy here." Harry's holding his hands out appeasingly, but his sneer is taunting. "And don't give me that look, that's what you want, isn't it? The attention?"

"Not from you," she spits back, closing her hands into fists.

Peter must have so much self control to put up with people like Harry and Flash all the time without losing it and using his powers. She doesn't think she has as much patience, but she has to. 

“I just want to know what you feel like," says Harry, trying to sound sultry. His eyes are glassy and unfocused from the alcohol. "Come on, Michelle, just once? We could go upstairs right now. I won't tell Peter, I promise."

Michelle hates that getting into Harry's face would be exactly what he wants her to do, but the idea of shrinking back or running away infuriates her even more. She narrows her eyes and glares at him without moving closer. "Fuck off, Harry."

“What? So you'd rather I _ do _ tell him?” Harry sneers, too amused for MJ's liking. “How about I tell your loverboy about _ all _ the stuff we've done?”

“We haven't done jack shit and you know it.”

He shrugs, raising his eyebrows in mock-innocence. “Peter doesn't know that.”

Michelle crosses her arms, the symbiote's deep rumbling growl vibrating in her chest. “You're a real asshole, you know that?”

“I'm lots of things,” Harry chuckles, raising dark his eyebrows suggestively. 

“Yeah, well, you're sure as hell not Spider-Man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #553-558 (1999)  
** Amazing Spider-Man Vol.1 #374 (1993)  
*** Amazing Spider-Man Vol.1 #43 (1966)
> 
> Sorry, should I have left you guys hanging with last chapter's Peter fluff instead of this?? How do you think the rest of Halloween night is going to play out (vs what you want?)?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halloween night gets hot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Track: [Fire by The Oddword](https://open.spotify.com/track/21cdKw79fYVY3UjjINGsxw?si=EHAeBbY9RO2GHuO0DXuHDw)
> 
> Thank you for reading and commenting!
> 
> Hope you enjoy part 2 of Halloween night.
> 
> TW: minor character death.

_ "I am a very hungry and thirsty girl. _

_ I have an infinite god-shaped hole inside." _

_—Melissa Broder, On Reading _

-*-

Even after she elbowed her way past Harry, a part of MJ still wanted Rage to overcome her control and turn them back around, grab Harry and throw him across the room. That would have been the stupidest way to out herself, but it would have been so satisfying.

Still fuming and mentally going over all the things she should have said or done, MJ finds Peter on her way out of the frat house as he returns from what turned out to be a false alarm. 

“There was no drunk kid trying to climb out the fire escape,” Peter says with annoyance, running his fingers through his hair and tugs the Batman mask back over his eyes. "Those frat guys just gave me the run-around."

MJ clenches her fists but keeps her face neutral. “Harry and his friends are assholes.” Her lips still feel wormy and gross from Harry’s kiss, and she's eager to wash it out with something that isn't frat house jungle juice. “Let’s get out of here.”

The two of them join up with Betty and Ned outside and follow the cluster of ESU students heading toward the Village Halloween parade. They liquor-treat along frat row, taking shots of candy-corn colored liquor, and soon slip beneath the blue police barricades to join the parade revelers. 

Showing off her braided blonde hair and his fake Dothraki tattoos, Betty and Ned are in matching costumes as Daenerys and Khal Drogo from Game of Thrones. 

“I feel so objectified,” Ned announces as they follow the elaborate floats and totems down the avenue. "I have been getting unsolicited comments about my body all night from strangers!”

"But babe, you look so hot," Betty insists, completely serious as she latches onto his arm.

"That's not the point, babe!" Ned sighs. "Like, I know I've got an amazing bod. But that's not an open invitation!"

“You tell ‘em, Leeds,” says MJ, feeling tipsy enough to give him a fist-bump. 

"Cosplay is not consent!" Ned agrees, knocking his fist against hers.

Costumed parade-goers and giant paper mache puppets dance along the parade route, leaving fluttering streamers and trails of LED lights and glow sticks in their wake. Performers on stilts sweep through the crowd, blowing horns and beating drums, or twirling and throwing fiery batons in the air.

“Harry tried to stick his tongue in my mouth," MJ says to Peter without preamble. "While you were gone on that wild goose chase." 

"What?!" Peter stops in the middle of the parade, causing mild foot traffic and earning dirty looks from the less-drunk revelers that have to break around them. 

“I didn’t tell you when we were still at the house because I didn’t want you to do something stupid, like punch Harry—”

“I might still go back and punch him,” Peter says hotly, both fists clenched, making his biceps bulge and his forearms flex. She can feel the heat of his anger permeate through the symbiote suit, and Rage gladly guzzles it all up.

_ Peter's so angry… tastes good… We should have made them fight! _

_ It wouldn't have been a fight. Harry would go down in, like, one smack. _

_ Snack?! _

_ No! Humans are not snacks, Rage. You know better— _

_ But _ Peter's _ a snack! Ha ha ha! Get it, Michelle?_

"Em? You okay?"

Peter is looking at her with concern now, his anger cooling down by the second, and MJ realizes she's been awkwardly standing there without saying a word for too long. Inhaling deeply, she gives into her alcohol-fueled boldness and decides it's now or never. He deserves to know.

"Yeah, I'm good. More than that. Peter, I have something to tell you—"

When a loud boom goes off, everyone looks up, expecting fireworks. Instead, they’re greeted by a jet of orange flames shooting into the night sky. The flames flare again, followed by another, and appear to be getting closer and closer to the parade. The fire catches on a row of tree tops, and an ESU flag hanging off a nearby building is set ablaze. The people around MJ start to panic when they realize it’s not a show.

Before Peter can apologize to her, MJ pulls him in for a hard kiss, her hands cupping his face. He nods at her with a meaningful look and takes off.

“Sorry, 'scuse me! Pardon me!” Peter calls out as he cuts through the crowd, then disappearing into an alleyway. Moments later, MJ watches as Spider-Man propels himself into the air from the back of the alley and swing toward the fire. 

When MJ can’t find Ned and Betty, she frantically texts them to run away from the fire, while she continues running directly at the flames. After she rounds the corner into a deserted street, the symbiote slithers up her neck and covers the rest of her body, and MJ can feel the creature suck up the alcohol in her blood, metabolizing it until her head is clear and sharp again. With a shudder, they bond into Rage’s full suited form and launch themselves toward the blaze. 

Frantically vaulting back and forth in the air, Spider-Man is trying to avoid the jets of flames while luring the attacker away from the parade. “Hey, Fahrenheit 451! Over here!”

“The name’s Scorcher!”

Just when Spider-Man webs Scorcher’s flamethrowing arms behind his back, a large dark figure comes gliding through the air and knocks Spider-Man off the rooftop. His webs twist and break off Scorcher while the new attacker dives after Spider-Man, swinging a large axe in the air.

“Heads up!” he roars, laughing. “Finally, the Headsman is gonna be the one to kill Spider-Man!”

“What the hell? We said we’d both do it!” Scorcher yells angrily, leaping off the roof and descending toward his partner using some jetpack attached to his metal suit. 

Spider-Man has managed to get back on his feet and is about to swing himself back onto higher ground when the Headsman barrels into him. Holding his massive axe out as he hurdles toward Spider-Man again, he yells, “I thought it’d be harder to get rid of you, itsy bitsy Spider!”

With a growl, MJ slings out a long black tentacle and wraps it around the Headsman’s thick neck, jerking him off his hoverboard and lifting him a dozen feet above the ground. 

“I find your lack of faith disturbing…” Rage booms with its rumbling voice. A dark purple hood covers the Headsman’s head, so she doesn’t get to see his eyes bulge, but she can sense his rising panic.

She looks over at Spider-Man, excited to see his reaction, but he’s too busy fighting Scorcher to notice, trying to hold him off from causing any more damage with his fire. The entire block is burning and smoke obscures the night sky. 

Hurling the Headman aside, MJ runs toward Spider-Man and Scorcher, who is haphazardly shooting flames all over the place to combat Spider-Man’s webs. Dodging the stray jets of flame, Rage hurtles over burning debris toward Spider-Man, who swings around Scorcher and shoots a spray of webbing at the flamethrowers.

"Oh shit! That thing's real!" Scorcher exclaims when he sees her, his eyes bulging wide beneath the glass of his helmet. He begins shooting haphazardly in Rage’s direction. She quickly dodges the fire, but it catches on the buildings around them. Chasing after Scorcher, Spider-Man throws webs from both wrists around his weapon and tries to yank it away.

"Don't get in our way, web freak! I'm warning you!" Scorcher yells, trying to free his flamethrowing guns from the webbing.

“People are always warning me! It's nice to know they care!” Spider-Man shouts back, running and flipping in circles around his opponent. Scorcher tries to shoot the webbed guns again anyway, but the heat has to break through the hardened web fluid first, causing a scatter bomb of flames to shoot in all directions.

Although Rage evades the first spray of fire, a ball of flames hits her squarely in the chest, knocking her back. MJ feels the heat rip across the outer coating on her skin, paralyzing both her and the symbiote, and her eyes water from the pain. Her own body is unscathed, but the excruciating burning sensation ripples through the symbiote and into her, as if it were her own pain. 

_ Pain is just an emotional response_, MJ reminds herself, breathing fast, her eyes tearing up. _ Just an emotional— _

The sharp corner of something metal hits her hard in the middle of her back, sending her to her knees, but she can barely feel the blow beneath the searing heat all over her body.

“Got that freaky mother fucker! Now all we gotta do is tie it up and bring it in, collect the money!” Headsman shouts at Scorcher.

MJ tries to stumble to her feet again, but the symbiote is still reeling from the fire eating away at its biomass, swaying unsteadily. The Headsman swerves around and rams into her with his hoverboard again, sending her plummeting off the rooftop as Scorcher turns and aims his flamethrowers at her once more. She braces herself, either for a blast of heat or her final impact with the asphalt, and tries to soothe Rage with the last of her energy.

But MJ finds herself lifted off her feet and swinging into the air instead, with strong arms wrapped tightly around her, effortlessly carrying her. Looking down at her, Spider-Man’s white eye lenses twitch with worry, and she has to fight the urge to kiss him right over his mask. 

When they land on a solid surface, Spider-Man is shouting something at her but everything sounds muffled and unintelligible, like she has cotton in her ears and he's speaking through a busted microphone. Her head hurts and she just wants to close her eyes for a little bit...

The black ooze on her skin thins out until it feels clumpy and oily, slippery, like it’s about to slide off her body. Everything hurts so much that she can’t concentrate on anything else but the searing agony, and Rage just wants to enjoy the feeling of Spider-Man’s powerful arms around her.

MJ really wants to tell Peter that it's her underneath, that it's Michelle, _ his _ Michelle. But she doesn't know how he'll react to the Symbiote or what he'll want her to do—_make_ her do?—and she can't take it back once she tells him. She drops her head back and stares into the night sky, wishing she didn’t have this decision weighing on her.

Feeling the symbiote suit weaken and go slack against her body, MJ thinks that maybe the decision will be made for her. She imagines what Peter would say if her black suit suddenly slipped off her, leaving his girlfriend naked in his arms, and she closes her eyes, laughing deliriously.

Spider-Man shakes her gently, his arm cradling her around the back of her neck. “Stay with me, Rage! Don't close your eyes, don't fall asleep!”

The intensity of his emotions, his fear and compassion, radiates from him like a soothing wave washing over her, and she thinks she can lie here forever like this. Rage soaks it all up. The autumn air is crisp and smoky, and her skin doesn't feel like it's burning anymore. 

The brief respite in Spider-Man's arms is all Rage needs to recover, and MJ feels her bones re-aligning, tissue stretching—but no pain, even when there should be. The shiny black symbiote suit fuses perfectly against her skin again, and MJ gets up and immediately goes after Scorcher, ignoring Spider-Man protests. 

Fire is a danger to Rage, and she needs to protect Rage by eliminating the threat.

Their bonded limbs and torso are longer, enabling her to run faster and leap farther than before. The Headsman catches up to her and takes a swing at her with his axe from behind, but Rage dodges it and retaliates with a bullwhip crack of her tendril-arm, knocking him off his hoverboard. 

She turns around when a stream of fire goes whizzing by her shoulder, and comes face to face with Scorcher again. 

“Looking for me?!” Rage growls, and lunges at the man hovering in the air by his jetpack. He panics and raises his flamethrowers at her, as she anticipated, and shoots without looking. MJ has them drop low and punches him out of the air with their thick knotted tendrils.

One of Scorcher's sloppy shots hits the Headsman as he comes back around on his recovered hoverboard, and he falls off the craft and collapses on a rooftop.

The fire has already burned through his heavy hood, leaving him scrabbling at his face beneath the flames. 

"Aghhh! It burns! It burns!" Headsman screams as Scorcher's flames engulf him. “Help! Stop it! Stop it!"

_ It would be a mercy to kill him now, _ Rage insists.

What does the symbiote know about mercy?

Bristling, it replies in MJ's head, _ Just as much as you do. _

The sight of Headsman's skin starting to bubble and melt is hideous, hopeless. Soon, the thicker layer of his skin will shrink and split open, and if he's lucky, he'll be dead before that. 

Closing her eyes shut, MJ nods uneasily. Rage unhinges its jaws wide and snaps its mouth shut around his head, and the Headsman's screams become instant silence. His headless body collapses in a heap.

Savoring the taste of brain matter, Rage rapidly swells and heals from any remaining burns.

_ Don't want to waste the rest._

Opening its maw wide, the symbiote devours the rest of the Headman in a single gulp, and a quiet finality descends amidst the fiery carnage around them. 

Sailing through the air, Spider-Man strafes across the side of a building and leaps off the corner to land beside them. "Rage! We gotta go, a bunch of trucks with armed soldiers showed up, not police or SWAT. Green uniforms."

"OsCorp?" Rage suggests. Both of their assailants seemed to be using high-tech gear instead of biological or genetic modifications, but their suits seemed to be clumsy replicas of Stark tech, which smells like OsCorp.

Spider-Man looks at her pensively, and after a moment finally says, "Maybe. That's what I thought, too, that they were back up for these two. But then they took down Scorcher and stuffed him into one of those trucks!"

"He was a loose end for them, since he couldn't finish the job," MJ replies through Rage, piecing it all together. "They're after _ me_. And those trucks are here to take me in, too." Her faceless head turns to him, big opal eyes blinking. "I'm sorry I got you mixed up in this. They're destroying everything to get to me." 

"It's not your fault, Rage. You don't deserve to get locked up for what OsCorp or all these supervillains are doing," he reassures her with a hand on her shoulder. "Besides, they're messing with my city, so they have to deal with me."

Taking a deep breath, she asks softly in Rage's gravelly voice, "How do you always know what the right thing to do is?" 

"You think I always know what the right thing is?" says Spider-Man, surprised. "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm just figuring it out as I go." 

Looking back at the flames and burning embers from the fight's destruction, MJ wonders if she acted out of mercy for the Headsman or just gave into the symbiote's appetite. Could it be both? Is she just making excuses for the creature? For herself?

When Rage doesn't say anything, Spider-Man says, "Headsman wasn't going to make it after getting burned that badly. You made it quick for him, at least."

"You saw that?" 

He nods grimly and crosses his arms almost defensively. The gesture stings. "Um, do you _ need _ to… eat people?" Spider-Man asks tentatively.

MJ shakes her head; she doesn't _ need _ to. "I eat normal human food, usually. Not made of humans, I mean. I'm a vegetarian, actually. Except for, you know, when… I guess that makes me a human-itarian?" MJ is rambling but she can't stop herself. "Sorry, bad joke. That's, like, your territory anyway, Spidey."

Spider-Man lets out a surprised laugh. "Ouch! Wow." MJ can imagine Peter's exact scrunched up expression beneath the mask, and feels his wariness towards her waning. 

Glancing down at his phone, he sighs and starts frantically texting, "Come on, come on..." He looks up at Rage then back where the OsCorp trucks are deployed. "Sorry, it's just... someone important to me isn't responding and she was out there in the crowd, and I just need to know that she's okay." 

MJ is itching to reach for her phone right then. Instead, she nods at him. "You should go."

He shifts on his feet. "You going to be okay, getting out of here without being seen? I can go back and check on the crowd while you leave, draw attention away."

Rage smiles wide, baring its fangs. "Yes. I'll be fine. Go find her. I bet she'll be real glad to see you."

-*-

Peter comes barrelling through the window to his dorm room like a storm, still smelling of smoke and covered in ash. Shaking his hair out when he pulls his mask off, he beams when he sees MJ sitting on his bed in only a sleeping shirt, her hair wild and loose. 

He had been so terrified up until she finally texted him back that she was safe. After making sure the rest of the parade-goers were safely away from the fiery scene, Peter was headed back to his room when he saw her name appear on his dashboard, and it filled him with an overwhelming sense of relief. As much as he longs for MJ when they're apart, at least while she was at school she was safe from all the supervillains attacking New York. 

But he is also really glad that she's here with him now.

Peter wipes the sweat and grime off his face as he rattles off what happened during the fight with Scorcher and Headsman. MJ's eyes go wide when he tells her about the Headsman's demise, and her lips purse grimly when he tells her about the maybe-OsCorp armed personnel grabbing Scorcher before Spider-Man could get to him. 

Hoping to lighten the mood, he recounts the villains' bad puns and how Rage had said Darth Vader's line while choking Headsman, making MJ laugh softly, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes follow him as he paces the narrow room, glittering with amusement. 

She also looks really, really pretty. 

Peter stops pacing and turns to her, unable to tame his ridiculous smile. He wishes it could always be like this, that he could come home to MJ everyday.

"What is it, bughead?" MJ nudges his butt with her foot. "You have that weird look on your face again."

Peter has been harboring an unspoken, selfish hope that she'll move back to New York after college, and it makes him feel guilty. But seeing her in his room, in his clothes and waiting for him, has rekindled the fantasy. "I've missed you, Em. So much."

She looks up at him with a challenging glint in her eyes. "Then show me."

Without hesitation, Peter quickly peels off his suit and pushes MJ back onto his bed. He begins exploring her body with his hands immediately, hungrily reacquainting himself with every part of her. Rubbing his thumbs over her shirt along the tips of her breasts, he makes her moan as her nipples harden beneath his touch. 

Then he tugs down her shirt to expose her breasts, and hungrily sucks at them. He loves tasting the salt of her sweat, and his super hearing picks up on the deep rumble in her throat—the moan she's trying to hold in—and her rapidly increasing heartbeat.

“I am losing it, Em. Please let me fuck you,” Peter rasps in her ear. 

A dreamy smile spreads across her face as she opens her legs for him. His heart feels like it's about to explode.

Peter starts out going slow, making sure he gets his entire length inside her with every stroke. She stares up at him with dark, heavy lidded eyes, and he swears it feels like she knows exactly how he feels, how much he wants her. Maybe MJ has always been able to see right through him.

Soon, he can feel her throbbing and clenching around him in waves. His thumb finds its way onto her slick clit and with another few strokes, MJ gasps that she’s close and holds him tighter and tighter, scratching him and pinching the thick muscles around his shoulders and arms. 

Peter makes sure to kiss her lips and neck while she comes, but MJ’s too distracted to kiss him back. Her moans are ragged and all she's focused on is chasing her orgasm, and it turns him on to no end. He watches intently as her eyes roll back into her head, her open mouth panting for air. 

It's still surreal to Peter each time, to think that he's the one doing that to her, that he's making Michelle Jones lose control as she twists and writhes with pleasure. When she finishes, still trembling in his arms, he finally lets himself go, too. 

Peter stays inside her a little longer afterwards, holding her tight. Neither of them has showered since coming back from the fiery attack, and his bed reeks of sex and sweat. But it feels so good to hold her, to be inside her, to have her lying boneless and undone in his arms. 

The memory of cradling a wounded Rage flashes in his mind, and how much lighter and slight-framed they were than he expected. He wonders if they're alright right now, and if they have someone like MJ to go home to.

MJ gently strokes Peter's hair and touches his cheek, and her lips curl up into that slow, secret smile she reserves just for him. "What's going on in that head?"

"Nothing," he replies, pressing his face into her palm. Peter closes his eyes. "I'm just really glad you're here." 

_ I wish you could stay. I want you to stay. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headman and Scorcher are some b-list villains that appeared in Untold Tales of Spider-Man.
> 
> So, like, everything is fine right?? Are you worried for MJ? Peter? What are you hoping will happen?
> 
> Also, I've been watching His Dark Materials and realize I might be writing the symbiote like MJ's daemon :P
> 
> Yell at me on the [Tumblr @machiavelien](https://machiavelien.tumblr.com/) :3


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter visits MJ and gets some positive reinforcement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: [Carnivore by Giselle](https://open.spotify.com/track/2osA70SLH8aP42JjVzAHIC?si=Aal3Scf1SPyRndK5qqkUOA)
> 
> MJ's poem are lyrics from Little Simz 'Venom'

_ “It is our custom / to consume / the person we love." _

_ —Gloria Anzaldúa, The Cannibal’s Canción _

-*-

“Self checkout's over there," says MJ, not bothering to look up from her book. It’s almost the end of her library shift at the front desk, and she seems disinterested in providing any customer service.

"What if I want to check _ you _ out?" says Peter, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. 

Her eyes flick up to him, and a grin steals across her face as she shuts her book closed. “You’re early.” 

He leans across the counter towards her. “I am.”

Peter managed to take an earlier bus to Cambridge that morning and got in sooner than planned, perhaps for the first time in his life. He’s been aching to visit MJ since he last saw her at Halloween, plus he’d get to see her first spoken word performance of the school year tomorrow night.

“That deserves some positive reinforcement,” MJ replies, standing up. A hint of a smile plays on her lips. “Follow me.”

They end up tucked in a dark corner of the library stacks upstairs where, MJ insists, students and staff rarely go. It's dusty, but dark and exciting, even if his super hearing can pick up every little sound, which keeps him constantly on edge about being caught. 

_ She’s so beautiful_, he thinks wistfully, running his fingers through MJ’s soft, curly hair; Peter feels like the luckiest guy in the world. She looks up at him with that inscrutable glare of hers that always thrills him, and their eyes lock intensely. 

Even when she's deepthroating him and the bottom half her face is a sloppy wet mess, MJ is still in control, driving the pace and direction of his pleasure. She gags and her throat tightens around the tip of his cock, sending a heady shiver through his body, and her fingers grip onto his muscled thighs to steady herself. 

Gasping, Peter starts thrusting his hips. He loves watching the way her lips stretched around his girth, like she's sucking on a popsicle.

“You're amazing. I love you so much, MJ,” he says softly, tracing her cheek with his thumb. 

She rolls her eyes and withdraws his cock from her mouth slowly, sucking it all the way to the tip and releasing him with a petulant pop between her puckered lips. 

“Way to kill the mood, Parker,” she whispers, wiping her mouth with her forearm. 

“What’s wrong? I can’t tell you I love you when we’re going to _ make _—”

MJ presses a finger to his lips and shakes her head. “I told you I wanted to blow off some steam with hard mindless fucking tonight. So, _ use _ me. Toss me around, fuck my mouth,” she demands, wrapping her hand around the base of his shaft again and licking her swollen lips as she looks him in the eyes. “_Wreck me_, Peter.”

“Oh! Right. Yeah, I can do that! Sorry,” he stammers, biting his lip as he struggles to calm his hammering heart and the aching need in his cock. 

Exhaling a low groan, Peter cradles her head as he pushes his cock past her lips and deep into her waiting mouth. She sucks voraciously, letting his precum and her saliva dribble down her chin and drip onto her breasts. 

“Whoa… hey… are you, is everything... okay?” he pants, his heart pounding furiously as he grips edge of the bookcase behind them with his free hand. 

MJ garbles some assent as she continues to bob her head on his cock. She tightens her grip around him, making him moan again. Any train of thought that Peter previously had a tenuous grasp on is slipping away as his orgasm comes on hard and fast.

She swallows his load greedily while looking up at him, and a shadow of something flits across her dark eyes, but then it’s gone. After one last suck, she runs her tongue up the length of his cock once more before releasing him. 

“You’re incredible,” he gasps, still holding onto the metal bookcase for support. 

MJ licks her lips. “And you're delicious.”

Barely finished with zipping his fly up, Peter yelps when she grabs his hand and starts eagerly leading them out of the labyrinth of bookshelves and study carrels. Her long curls bounce along her back and her lean hips sway as she moves, the lines of her shoulders and elbows sharp and straight. He could watch her forever, he thinks, pulled along in her wake.

When they're out of the building, MJ rushes them back to her room. Her eyes are bright with mischief whenever she turns and catches his, and Peter easily slips back into their familiar rhythm. By the time she's fumbling to unlock the door, Peter can feel the excitement radiating off of MJ, the hitch in his chest having nothing to do with their pace across campus.

When his phone vibrates, Peter glances at the screen and frowns, quickly shoving it deep into his jacket pocket. Couldn't he catch a break, just this once?

"Everything okay?" MJ asks, sitting up. 

Peter shakes his head. "Yeah, nothing for you to worry about." He can tell her later, he decides.

Shrugging, she immediately begins pulling Peter’s clothes off before the door is completely closed. Then she pushes him onto the bed and starts climbing on top of him, her long legs straddling his naked torso.

They are definitely not new to hot and frantic sex, but MJ is more uninhibited, wild, and demanding than ever. Peter _ really _ likes it. 

He likes knowing that MJ wants him just as much as he wants her, and he likes the way his name sounds when she's panting it, over and over again, until her entire body is shuddering against him, like a tightly wound coil that's finally been let free.

They lie in her bed afterwards, still naked and sweaty, and Peter feels more relaxed than he has in a long time—since he was last in MJ's arms, coincidentally. 

“Did you know that the female of many spider species will often kill and eat the male after sex?" asks MJ, tracing a finger along the taut lines on Peter's chest. "Turns out it’s all about size. Small male spiders are easier to catch as prey, and big females will eat their puny mates simply because they’re hungry."

“Oh. I did not know that. Um, cool?” Peter has his arm around her and wraps a curl of her hair along his finger.

MJ flashes him a predatory smile that weirdly turns him on. "With wolf spiders, small males are consumed eighty percent of the time by their female lovers,” she adds, ghosting her fingertips along his forearms resting across her chest.

"You saying you wanna eat me up?" Peter asks, smiling crookedly at her.

Her eyes darken and she smiles wide, teeth showing. "Absolutely."

_ -*- _

_ Fucked those who don't believe _

_ They would never wanna admit I'm the best here _

_ From the mere fact that I've got ovaries _

_ It's a woman's world, so to speak _

_ Pussy, you sour _

_ Never givin' credit where it's due 'cause you don't like pussy in power _

_ Venom. _

Reciting the lines in her head over and over again, MJ periodically stops to make last minute edits to her poem, silently mouthing the words to herself. 

Her slam show is tonight, and it will be the first time since bonding with the symbiote that she is in front of that many people. All eyes will be on her, and MJ desperately hopes the symbiote doesn't do anything while she's onstage. 

Maybe she should have a quickie beforehand, just in case? Take the edge off? 

Meanwhile, Peter is sitting across from her in the middle of the library reading room, bopping his head along to whatever's playing in his earbuds while doing his homework. The tip of his tongue is sticking out slightly as his eyes flit across his textbook, tapping his pen on the page. 

It's quiet except for the rustling of pages and clicking of keyboards that echo across the study hall, but MJ can hear the bass of his music thumping off-rhythm against his heartbeat. 

Peter re-wets his lips, still focused on his assignment, and she imagines him throwing her on the table, knocking the gold table lamps over as he climbs on top of her, and she could lie there and stare up at the vaulted ceilings while Peter—

His phone vibrates again, signaling a string of texts or repeated calls interrupting her fantasies.

"Your other girlfriends are blowing up your phone," MJ deadpans, nudging the device across the table.

Taking his earbuds out, Peter looks down, takes a deep breath, and whispers, "Okay, don't freak out."

MJ side-eyes him. "Why would you ever say that to keep someone from freaking out?"

He shrugs helplessly. 

"Spill it, dork."

Peter purses his lips together tightly before saying, “It’s... Norman Osborn.”

"What?!" exclaims MJ. Someone shushes her, so she whips her head around and growls back, then turns back to Peter. "Why is Norman _ fucking _ Osborn sliding into your DMs?" she asks in a loud whisper. 

"He came up to me after the ESU research symposium I presented at last week," replies Peter, "and saying all this weird stuff about how he could recognize another 'man of science' and ‘a rare genius’."

She supposes that shouldn't be too unusual, given that Osborn is a prominent university donor, if not for his particular fixation on Peter. Does he know he's Spider-Man? What does he want from Peter?

When they get shushed again by other students, MJ grabs her bag in a huff and tugs Peter out of the reading room and into an alcove out in the library hallway. There, he continues telling her about how Norman has been persistently trying to persuade Peter to attend a dinner party at his townhouse, "a salon for great minds".

"And you're considering it? Isn't this getting too close to the fire?” asks MJ, trying to keep the worry from coming out in her voice. "We still don't know what he wants from you, why he _ kidnapped _ you."

Peter visibly flinches, but a determined look settles on his face. “I'll be ready this time."

"Peter—"

Taking both of her hands in his, he looks up at her earnestly. "Really, I'll be fine, I promise. I can just slip away during the party when it gets busy and, I dunno, poke around, investigate his office or something.” 

Torn between her fear for Peter's safety and her need to know what Norman's up to, MJ presses the back of her head against the wall and sighs. "Be careful."

"You know I always am," he replies brightly, but she doesn't laugh.

Closing her eyes, MJ figures out the last few lines to her closing poem, which have been alluding her for weeks.

_ I assume you'll be comin' for blood _

_ That makes two of us, that makes two of us _

_ Rage, nothin' but Rage…. _

-*-

The stage lights beaming straight down on her face are uncomfortably hot, and by the time she is done performing, MJ has sweated through her cropped top, leaving the fabric stuck to her body. But the audience’s applause makes her cheeks tingle and burn with gratification, so she stays to give them an awkward bow and wave before hurrying offstage. 

MJ has never been hungry for a crowd's approval before, never vied for their attention or adoration. In fact, she has always sought the opposite—opportunities to hide and blend in with the background, telling herself that it's more advantageous to be unseen, to be a shadow that observes while remaining unknown and unknowable to the observed. 

But the crowd's energy tonight and her influence over them felt empowering and validating, almost addictive, and MJ imagines what it could be like to perform onstage every night—what it would be like to command an entire room with just her words and the force of her presence.

Rage is settled down inside her chest, satiated from feeding on the adrenaline that pumped through MJ during her set. They’ve been keeping a low profile since Halloween, and she's certain that she finally has everything under control. She can handle Rage and its appetites better now, and they haven't killed or eaten a single person since Headsman.

Everything will be fine. Everything _ is _ fine _ . _

Plus, Peter is waiting for her at the bottom of the stage with a box of chocolates and the biggest smile on his face. He immediately showers her with praise and compliments about her performance, while his eyes follow her hips as she saunters closer to him. 

“Don't worry, tiger. You get your own private show later,” she says, popping a piece of chocolate into her mouth and savoring the melting sweetness on her tongue. 

“Yeah? Promise?” Peter straightens up, grinning eagerly. She responds by throwing her arms around him and kissing him deeply. 

With their fingers linked together, MJ introduces Peter as her boyfriend to the other members of her Harvard spoken word group, and she has to keep fighting a goofy smile that makes her cheeks hurt. 

Afterwards, tugging Peter along by the hand through the post-show crowd, she leads them out the back doors and takes a shortcut across campus back to her room. Her heart is racing and her skin is tingling with anticipation.

Peter seems distracted when she turns around to look at him. 

"What's wrong?"

He shakes his head and assures her it's nothing. MJ gives him a skeptical look, but then he starts taking off his shirt, so she lets him off the hook this time. Then he’s kissing her all over, from her neck to her throat and down to her stomach.

"Eat me," she commands in a ragged voice.

"Yes, ma'am," he replies eagerly, tugging at her jeans. She lifts her hips so he can peel the grey denim off of her. 

Closing her eyes, MJ concentrates on having Peter’s head between her legs, the hot, wet, squirming sensation of his tongue running all over her folds, teasing and slippery. 

"More, I want more," she pleads. She sounds pathetic but she doesn’t care. The symbiote is ravenous for the endorphins flooding her body with every flick of Peter's tongue, but it's MJ who can't get enough of him.

When he finally sinks into her, she gasps and her mind seizes onto the rapturous feeling of being filled by him. Peter wraps his arms around her, bracing her as they move together—agonizingly slow at first, so she feels every inch, then harder and faster. An electrifying current shoots directly through her body from where they’re joined, and every single one of her cells is still screaming for more.

With a deep breath, Peter pushes himself even further into MJ, and her little cunt struggles around the thickness at the base of his cock. She doesn’t care. Her body wants him inside of her so badly. 

Rage is going wild inside her, caught up in a feeding frenzy and devouring the oxytocin in her brain. Closing her eyes, she concentrates on the wet, sloppy cock sliding in and out of her, and the raw, hot friction of each stroke. 

"You can do anything you want to me," she gasps. "_Anything, _ Peter. Just don't stop."

It's the kind of silly thing one promises in the heat of the moment, but MJ thinks she really means it. She trusts him, completely, more than anyone, including herself.

Peter wraps his hand around the back of her neck and hikes her leg over his hip for better leverage. Hanging onto him as he pounds into her from this new angle, MJ whispers hotly in his ear, urging him to come, telling him how much she wants it—wants _ him_.

Then she can feel it, the swelling that happens right before Peter climaxes, and she loses herself in the mind-numbing pleasure.

Peter groans heavily as he comes, his arms still holding her tight, and she presses her face against the crook of his chest and bicep, restraining herself from taking a bite. He smells _ so _ good.

When he pulls out, a rush of his cum oozes out of her, bringing her back to reality. MJ feels dirty and used up, and she likes it. 

A self-satisfied smirk unfurls on her lips. She's sweaty and sticky all over, except for his slippery semen running down her inner thighs. 

_ Spider-Man's slut. _

When the Daily Bugle published the photo of her kissing Spider-Man last summer, online trolls and Spidey-groupies went after her hard, calling her all sorts of terrible, misogynistic, sometimes racially charged shit. MJ just tuned it all out and tried to ignore the insults and names as if they didn't exist, instead of confronting it. 

But now, she doesn't give a fuck about any of it. None of them know her and they can't touch her, and there's nothing anyone can do to keep Peter from her. 

_ From us_, the symbiote interrupts. _ No one can keep Peter from us. _

That's right, MJ thinks. _ Peter belongs to us. _

Wiping herself clean with a t-shirt from the hamper, MJ crawls back into bed beside Peter. 

The symbiote is quietest when she's with Peter after sex, finding comfort in the rhythm of his heartbeat and the solid weight of his arms. But it rustles in MJ’s chest when they sense the intense joy buzzing and radiating from Peter, how hot his blood runs when he's excited.

"I love you," she whispers, fighting the urge to hold her breath. It's the first time she has said it to Peter since her sickbed declaration at the end of the summer. He’s been too gracious to bring it up again, perhaps suspecting that she was still deciding whether or not to pretend it never happened and blame it on the delirium of pain meds. 

Her head is resting on his chest and it rises softly when he inhales deeply, and Peter smiles down at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I love you, too, MJ." His lips twitch as he tries not to say more, tries not to scare her off by being too enthusiastic.

“Would you still love me even if I did something bad? Like, _ really _ bad?” she asks, half-joking. MJ is specifically thinking of the symbiote's body count so far, but the moment she asks, she realizes she does want to know how far Peter's love for her would go. Would he think of her differently if he knew what she has become? Would he be horrified? Disgusted?

“Like what kind of bad?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

Peter sits up, looking at her thoughtfully. “Is this for something you’ve already done, or might do?”

“Either. Both.” MJ shrugs, trying not to appear too nervous. “Does it matter?”

She knows she has to tell Peter about the symbiote, but things with him are just so _ good _ right now, and she wants to savor it for a little longer while she still can. 

He smiles easily for her. “No, it doesn’t matter. I’d still love you, even if you did something bad, something you're not proud of.” Peter flops his head back down on the pillow, his smile turning pensive. “What about you? Could you still love me even if I did something terrible? Unforgivable?”

MJ purses her lips in mock-concentration. “Like what?”

"I don't know._ Anything_," Peter teases, repeating her non-committal words back at her. 

She reaches out and strokes his hair, pretending she has to think about it at all. "Yes, I’d still love you,” she finally says. “I'd forgive you, too. Because I know who you are. You would never willingly do something unforgivable."

He's still smiling, but his eyes darken, serious when he meets her eyes. "You don't know the things I've done."

"And _ you _ don't know the things _ I've _ done," she replies grimly.

When Peter chuckles and begins to protest, MJ presses a finger to his lips and shifts her body down so she can lay her head on his chest. Worn out and spent, he eventually falls asleep before she does, and MJ is left listening to his heartbeat as she wrestles with her own warring thoughts.

She wakes to the feeling of Peter stirring against her back, twisting in the sheets and mumbling something unintelligible. It's still dark out and their alarms haven't gone off yet. 

Grinning to herself, MJ wriggles her butt closer to Peter's crotch, her usual signal that she's up for a lazy middle-of-the-night session, and waits for him to tug her underwear down just enough so he can slide himself into her from behind.

When he doesn't make a move, MJ turns around to face him and finds Peter with his eyes shut, trembling and clammy, muttering in distress. Her sleepy arousal quickly turns into worry, and she can feel Rage stir awake as well.

"Peter, wake up. You're having a bad dream," she whispers, reaching over to comfort him. He grabs her arm before she can touch him, and his eyes snap open, wild and confused, until they settle on her. "MJ?"

"Yeah, it's me. I'm right here," she says, shifting closer. She sweeps his hair off his sweaty forehead. “Are you okay?”

"Just a bad dream," he croaks out, but he doesn't take her hand or move to put his arm around her like he usually does.

_ Peter is angry. Why is he angry with us? _ asks the symbiote.

_ He's not, it's just his dreams. _ MJ sneaks her arms around Peter’s waist. _ Don’t worry, I'll take care of him. _

She can tell Peter has fallen back asleep by the slow and steady rhythm of his breathing, but it’s still punctuated by occasional fits and whimpers. So she hugs him tighter, nuzzling against his neck until she slips into her own dreamless sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that wasn't too much smut in a row... What are you most excited for / hoping to happen?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and MJ deal with being apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Track: [Choke by Poppy](https://open.spotify.com/track/7BWyFa7hnm2D31CVydyUMl?si=rsK0wqBFRzWrXtKPZS2QyQ)
> 
> Thank you for sticking with me on this crazy ride!

_ “Tell me, _

_ How does it feel with my teeth in your heart?” _

_ —Euripides, Medea _

-*-

"Listen, I only have a minute, but I wanted to let you know that I'll be home for Thanksgiving,” MJ tells Peter over the phone. “Will you be waiting for me?" She can’t wait to see him, but the looming conversation about the symbiote fills her with dread—what if the truth disgusts him? Horrifies him?

"Of course. With bells on!" Peter sounds like he's flying through the air, the wind whistling in the background.

"Sounds kinky," MJ deadpans, but she's smiling.*

"Gotta keep it interesting, you know? Don't want you to get bored of me just yet," he says. Then with a sudden yelp, he chokes out, "Uh, I gotta go, about to get punched, bye!"

He hangs up before MJ can say goodbye, so she tries not to dwell on his fate as she walks into her next class.

She wants to tell Peter the truth about the symbiote so badly—she almost did it at Halloween, right before Scorcher and Headsman attacked. Now, with OsCorp looking for her and willing to expend any amount of resources and cause as much damage as necessary to get a hold of her, she has to tell him the truth when she sees him.

It'll only be two more weeks, MJ reminds herself. But the longer she’s away from Peter, the more agitated and restless she feels, and she’s quickly reminded of the symbiote’s ravenous and indiscriminate appetite. 

But she fights the urge, the compulsion to consume and devour and _ feel something_.

So she starts jogging even earlier in the morning, when it’s darkest and coldest and as still as a tomb. The frigid New England air burns into her skin, settling in her bones like a slow death, as she cradles the symbiote in the icy cradle of her ribs. She can't even see her breath fog in front of her face, and she keeps going until her muscles scream and her ears and nose go numb.

When they’re back in her room, MJ empties two hot chocolate packets into a mug and, while the electric kettle is boiling, sends Peter a good morning text and checks for the latest Spider-Man news on her feed. 

She's been trying to prevent the craving from consuming her, but she can't help it. As the hot sweet drink runs down her throat like fire, her mind keeps wandering back to Peter and what she'd like him to do to her. She wants his body, his devotion, his love—she wants everything from him. 

But he’s barely responded to any of her texts or calls all week, and she's really trying not to take it to heart. It's not unusual for Peter to disappear when he’s had a string of heavy patrols and loses track of the days, but this feels different. 

His few responses have been erratic and lack their usual spark and excessive use of exclamation marks and smilies. Though MJ doesn't want to be an obsessive girlfriend in overanalyzing his text messages, something feels off and she can't quite pinpoint it.

She licks the chocolate off her lips and checks her phone again; still nothing from Peter. MJ tells herself that she’s only imagining it, that he isn’t avoiding her—even though she knows what it feels like to be ignored by Peter Parker, and this is _ exactly _ what that feels like.

When he finally does reply, Peter insists that he's just been really busy with school and Spider-Man stuff. But MJ’s been diligently keeping tabs on supervillain sightings in New York, and has particularly noticed how much Spider-Man has cut down on his patrol time.

Nonetheless, Peter claims he's been exhausted and unable to get enough sleep, waking up feeling more drained and wrung out every morning than the night before. He quickly assures her that it's nothing that won't pass with time, but MJ hates the suspicion still churning in her stomach. 

"How was the party? Find out anything interesting?" she asks, trying to steer their conversation back to something familiar and shared between them.

Peter sighs and shakes his head. "No. First off, it wasn’t actually a party, it was just me, Norman, and Harry! At, like, this long fancy dinner table at their house, but it was just the three of us." 

MJ frowns. She doesn't like the feeling of being blindsided, especially by Norman. "D'you think he meant to lure you there like that?"

"I dunno. It was a… weird dinner. I couldn't get away when there was just the three of us, and the staff kept standing there and waiting for any chance to fold my napkin and refill everything."

"Sounds really horrific, being waited on hand and foot," she jokes, surreptitiously scrutinizing Peter's face and gestures on the video chat screen. He seems mostly normal, maybe a little ragged but no more than any college sophomore during midterms.

"It is when Norman Osborn's staring at you eat the whole time!" says Peter. "Thank goodness Harry was there. Can you believe I'm saying that?!"

MJ agrees, that sounded pretty dire.

"Hey, Em? I gotta go. But I'll send you the footage of the dinner from my body cam, okay? I was gonna use it for exploring the mansion, but since I couldn't do that, I turned it on for dinner."

She's disappointed that Peter cuts their conversation short and that he wasn't able to investigate Norman's home further. But being able to review some up-close footage of Norman is still progress, and she finds comfort in being a team with Peter even when they're so far apart.

In the video, Norman was settled at the head of a longer formal dining table, with Peter around the corner on his right. 

“I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that has gathered too much honey. I need hands outstretched to take it from me. I wish to spread it and bestow it,” said Norman, eyes intent on Peter.

"Is my dad doing that _ ubermensch _ thing again?" asked Harry as he sat down across from Peter.

"Please excuse my son's facetiousness," Norman frowned. "Not everyone can comprehend the importance of knowledge as a means to power."

Most of the dinner continues along that strange vein, with Norman making bizarre declarations while Harry rolled his eyes. MJ also makes note of how many times Norman excused himself that evening, claiming severe headaches, and how he got angrier every time Spider-Man was mentioned in passing.

"Forty thousand years of evolution and we've barely even tapped the vastness of human potential!"** exclaimed Norman. "And this Spider-Man does what with the first bit of genuinely powerful biological mutations? He becomes a vigilante, to save cats from trees and help old ladies cross the street! Can you believe it? Such wasted power."

"What else is he supposed to use his powers to do?" asked Peter, trying to keep his irritation out of his voice.

“‘Man is something that shall be overcome. Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss," Norman declared passionately, clinking his soup spoon against the china bowl for emphasis. "What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.’ That means we can be the end—we are the overman, the _ ubermensch_!"

"There it is," Harry muttered under his breath. 

After his father excused himself again, he leaned over to Peter and said, "He talks too much, really takes the punch out of the stuff he's saying, even if he's right." Harry poured himself another glass of wine. "Like Spider-Man, who's always yapping and trying to be everybody's buddy when he could be owning everyone. If I were superpowered, I wouldn't say a thing—just be like, the strong silent type."

"Like Batman?" Peter joked.

"But with superpowers, dummy," said Harry. "Batman's power is his money, which obviously isn't enough. Not if you want to become the overman."

-*-

While brushing his teeth, Peter stares at his tired reflection in the bathroom mirror, passively cataloging the dark rings under his eyes, the healing bruise on his cheek, and how he needs a haircut.

He can't remember the last time he's had a decent night's rest. Probably not since he visited MJ; despite the confusing and feverish dreams that have been plaguing him lately, he was able to sleep deeply for a few hours in her arms. 

But as soon as he got back to New York, he's been dogged by a heaviness that just keeps growing every day, like a dark shadow in the back of his mind trying to engulf his brain.

It reminds him of the unnerving sensation of being watched, tingling just at the edge of his Spider-sense, and he can't shake it off.

During his last patrol, he swore he even heard a voice in his mind hiss, _ For every life you save... there's a million new ways to die. Such effort, such sacrifices you make… all for nothing.*** _

It wasn’t the first time that particular thought has crossed his mind, not even close. But Peter's never had a distinctly separate voice speak to him like that before. Maybe he's just tired, he hopes. But more likely, it’s the next permutation of the paranoia he’s been carrying around since his abduction at the end of the summer. 

He hasn't told anyone, not even MJ, but the experience still haunts him; the helplessness he felt, all drugged up and tied down, unable to use his strength or web shooters—it was unlike any of his close calls as Spider-Man. Whoever was behind it was specifically going after Peter Parker, and he doesn’t know what to do but remain vigilant at all times, both in and out of the suit. 

He spits in the sink.

MJ suspects that Norman Osborn is responsible, and the dinner party at his townhouse did little to assuage Peter’s paranoia. He felt like an insect all night, pinned to a board while Norman inspected and dissected him throughout dinner.

“The real man wants two different things: danger and play,” Norman had declared, raising his glass of wine to start their uncomfortable evening.

“...Therefore he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything,” Harry finished for his father, bored. “Nietzche, obviously.”

That explained so much about that family. But Peter still doesn't know what Norman wants with him, nor why he's been so insistent with inserting himself in Peter's life. Does he suspect about Spider-Man? Or is he trying to get to the Black Cat or even Night Monkey after they busted Peter out the last time? 

Or maybe Norman is just a highly-involved ESU alumni and donor who's taken an interest in one of the engineering department's top students—Peter can already picture the withering look on MJ's face in response to that optimistic theory. 

Watching the toothpaste suds swirl down the drain, he tries to calm the gnawing pit of unease inside of him. 

When he told MJ about his troubled sleep, he left out one part—he didn't mention the recurring dreams involving her, the one where he's watching her in the middle of a tangle of sweaty flesh, her brown skin flashing and disappearing in the writhing mass, unfamiliar fingers digging into her thighs, pulling her knees apart. 

The sight of all those hands touching and fondling MJ made Peter see red, and he'd try to get closer but his legs would grow as heavy as lead, keeping him rooted in place, and then that deranged laugh filled his head:

"_I'm gonna finish her nice and slow. MJ and I—we're gonna have a hell of a time! _"**

Growling angrily and gritting his teeth, Peter tried to move his legs again, to get to her. He could still hear MJ's familiar moans above the strange men's grunts, but the taunting voice is louder: "_ She makes you weak_." 

Peter shook his head violently, yelling at the voice to shut up, and when he finally looked up, he found MJ alone, naked and shivering as she's huddled around herself. 

But then something grabbed her from the darkness, green scaly arms wrapping around her waist and dragging her back into the dark void, and she screamed, reaching out for him. "Peter! Help me!"

But he was too late, and then she's gone.

The nightmare often repeats with little variation, much like his old nightmares of Mysterio dropping MJ from bone shattering heights, over and over again. Each time is a sickening gut punch that leaves Peter wheezing for air.

_ But she's mine, _he repeats to himself.

The possessive feeling lingers with Peter all day. It's gritty and dirty, like unwashed soap scum and dirt under his nails, and he hates it. He can’t stop thinking about MJ, but the thoughts are all twisted and irrational. 

He tries to remember the warm, comforting feelings of being with her, but can only recall the frustration and jealousy.

Like Brad Davis' head pressed against hers as they shared a headphone jack and armrest while watching an inflight movie together. Or Harry Osborn making her laugh at his fancy party while he had his hands all over her bare legs. Or when one of the guys in MJ’s spoken word club kept trying to prolong their conversation after her show, inching closer to her and touching her arm whenever he could.

Peter clenches his teeth and tries to think of something else, anything else. While he's out on patrol, his mind is still looping through the same paranoid theories and unpleasant memories, when his phone vibrates. A call from MJ.

_ Where has she been? Who's she been with? _

Peter shakes his head to clear it, and swipes his phone to pick up the call. She tells him she'll be coming back to the city for Thanksgiving. Joy and fear clutches his heart; he wants to see her so badly, but he doesn't want her to see him like this. 

She asks him if he'll be waiting for her, and his reply is filled with forced enthusiasm to mask the anxiety that's choking him.

_ Where has she been? Who's she been with? _

_ Who cares! _Peter thinks back in frustration.

In her classic deadpan, MJ tells him he sounds kinky, and her familiar weird flirting calms him a bit. He tries to sound light-hearted, joking that he doesn't want her getting bored of him.

_ She's already bored of you, _the taunting voice says in his head.

_ Shut up, shut up! _

Peter makes an excuse to hang up on MJ and drops down to the nearest alleyway to get a hold of himself. The surges of intrusive thoughts are becoming more aggressive and frequent by the day and he doesn’t know how to stop it.

When he's too tired to fight it, which is happening more and more, he avoids MJ's calls and texts entirely so he doesn't end up saying something he doesn’t mean or do something he’ll regret. Just until he gets rid of whatever this thing is, he tells himself. 

_ Oh Peter, Peter… Stop kidding yourself. I'm here. I'm always here.**** _

-*-

Jerking her head awake when the bus reaches the city, MJ groans at the familiar angry blare of New York traffic. Her mouth is parched, and she’s overheated and dehydrated from the long ride. 

_ Cold, we want the cold… _

To soothe the symbiote, she keeps her parka unzipped as she makes her way back to Queens, embracing the icy air blowing in her face. As the sun sets and casts the street with the last of its light, she catches her reflection in a car window; her sagging skin looks as tired as she feels. 

The elevated subway tracks rumble as the 7 train crosses overhead, and the loud screeching of the breaks and thundering clatter grates on her and Rage’s nerves. So MJ crosses the street to take an alternate route to the Parkers that’s further away from the tracks, weaving through side streets and touching the edges of Spider-Man’s evening patrol route. 

Out of nowhere, a shadow moves past her and disappears around the corner, and if it weren't for the symbiote's ability to detect nearby lifeforms, she would have ignored it as a trick of the light or her active imagination hoping to see a familiar flash of red and blue.

They're quick, gliding through the air and turning sharply to throw her off their trail, but Rage is quicker and MJ is relentless. 

Her target is nowhere near as fast as Spider-Man, but she wants to remain unseen, so she drops back and stalks them from the shadows, where her inky form is nearly invisible. The shadow is also less agile than Spider-Man, lurching and wobbling in the air on a surfboard-like craft.

Eventually, the figure comes to a stop at an empty intersection and hovers in the air for a bit, in a trance. Streetlight glints off of the figure's head, illuminating a familiar and grotesque green mask. Could it be the Green Goblin? 

Shadows shift against the metal mask, making the frozen sneer move and twist, but MJ refuses to let it scare her. He hasn't spotted her yet, but the demonic face looks like it's staring right at her, and she resists the urge to shudder.

Suddenly, they turn away and dives into the shadows, and she goes after them in the form of a thick spool of biomass, silently sliding against buildings and leaping between dark gaps. 

When the silent Goblin pauses again at another corner, she shoots out a tendril to grab them but catches air instead. Her fist goes crashing into a wall from the momentum, sending a few crumbling bricks to the ground, but the Goblin is nowhere to be seen. 

-*-

_ She's hiding something from you. _

That unsettling presence tells him to be angry with her, that he _ should _ be angry with her. But the way she's looking at him disarms him; wide eyed, pleased. 

_ It's an act, she feels guilty about something_. The same dark thought works its way to the forefront of his mind again. _ She thinks you're weak, so easy to fool. _

"What's wrong, dork?" MJ slides her arms up and around his shoulders.

Peter shrugs her off. "Nothing."

She gives him a look that tells him she doesn't believe him, but she lets it go. "Would it make you feel better if I helped you relieve some… tension?" She leans in close and whispers in his ear. "Hint, I want you to say yes."

He leans away from her, frowning. "Since when did you become such a flirt? Trying to impersonate Felicia or something?"

A shadow of hurt passes over MJ's face, and she glances up at him from beneath her lashes, her full lips downturned and pouting. "I was just… I thought you would like… forget it. It was dumb." 

She turns away from him and looks out the window into the darkness, and he wonders what she's looking for. The white Christmas lights that Aunt May has already strung up along their windowsills make her brown skin glow, and her brown hair is haloed in soft light.

_ She really knows how to make herself look pretty, doesn't she? Keep you wrapped around her finger_, the voice hisses, making his stomach curl with desire and anger at the same time_. _

_Pretty lies are easier to swallow. You better not choke on hers... _

Peter shakes his head to clear away the intrusive accusations.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that," he says, pushing back against the thoughts buzzing in his skull like static.

_ Always crawling back to her like worm… No wonder she doesn't respect you. _

MJ runs her tongue against her dry lips and combs her fingers through her unruly hair. "It's okay. I'm feeling pretty gross anyway, it was a long bus ride."

"No, no! You're not gross at all. I'm just tired. I'm sorry, MJ."

_ Romantic fool! Taking the scraps she'll give you… _

Squeezing his eyes shut, Peter concentrates on pushing the voice to the back of his mind, deep down where it belongs in the dark. When he blinks his eyes open, MJ is looking at him curiously. 

"I'm really sorry," he repeats, holding his hands out to her. "And I would definitely like to relieve some tension, if the offer still stands?"

MJ considers for a moment before taking his hands and pulling him towards her for a kiss, and he peppers her cheek with silly pecks until she's smiling again. Then he makes his way down to her neck, mouthing the soft skin of her throat, and they fall into his bed, still kissing.

While he's on top of her, a possessive feeling seizes him, and he wraps his hands around her wrists to hold her down.

She grins up at him. "Is that the game we're playing tonight?"

He doesn't say anything and just kisses her hard on the mouth. She lets him push his tongue into her mouth and sucks on his lips, kissing him back voraciously.

It lets him to quiet the intrusive thoughts for a bit, when he's too busy tasting her and feeling the length of their bodies pressed against each other. 

_ She's mine, she's mine she's mine... _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #297  
** Spider-Man (2002)  
*** Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 #573  
**** Dark Avengers Vol. 1 #6
> 
> Some of y'all were thirsty for jealous Peter so here ya go!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MJ decides NYC has got to stop having parades.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter track: [ Still Healing by EDDIE](https://open.spotify.com/track/1TBYoKmgLjB9UkjNPQLMza?si=fTpjIKeySVKJGRCI07kxNw)
> 
> TW: grievous combat injuries; whump with (spoiler) a happy end.

_ “You have always wanted to caress every monster.” _

_ —Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra _

-*-

When MJ first arrived at the Parkers' apartment, Aunt May had warned her that Peter’s been in a foul mood ever since he came home for Thanksgiving. But MJ didn't care; she was too excited to finally see him and hold him and kiss that stupid face, no matter how grouchy he was. 

_ Peter! Peter! Peter! _ Rage chanted excitedly as they made their way to his bedroom, each step bringing them closer to him. They could even sense his presence from down the hallway, his heartbeat like a tantalizing beacon she could almost taste in her mouth. 

But the look he gave her when she first walked in had filled MJ with a strange sense of dread, like she had betrayed him in some way, and she found herself trying to overcompensate by flirting and letting his biting remarks slide. But even that wasn't enough, and Peter continued to be irritable and cold towards her, despite her best efforts to cheer him up. 

Was it something she said or did? Was it how ragged she looked when she arrived last night, hungry and exhausted as she was? Even the symbiote felt crestfallen by his reception, deflated and curled up like a rock in her stomach.

In the past, MJ would have given Peter the cold shoulder and silent treatment in return, maybe even leave the Parkers’ apartment altogether so she could nurse her hurt alone—_ anything _ but let anyone else see her wounded like that. 

But this time she stays, and when he apologized, MJ could sense that he was being sincere, even if she still doesn't understand what came over him before. 

Then she let him kiss her all over, apologizing to her with his soft mouth and rough hands. She knows she’s only putting off the symbiote conversation a little longer, that she’s just delaying the inevitable, but what’s one more evening? 

MJ also knows that Peter slipped out of bed in the middle of the night, probably to patrol when he couldn't sleep.

As far as she's aware, he hasn't needed to do that for a while, not since the years immediately after Tony's death. Not knowing what’s bothering Peter now makes her feel more disconnected from him than when they're actually hundreds of miles apart, and she doesn’t know how to reach him.

-*-

MJ's been rehearsing about fifty different versions of how her symbiote conversation with Peter could go. She's tried various opening lines but none of them sounded quite right, and she can't help feeling guilty for having put it off for this long already.

Why is telling him the truth so much harder than everything else she's done since the symbiote came into her life? Is this why Peter put off telling her about Spider-Man until she cornered him in Prague?

She's even rehearsing their hypothetical conversation in her head right now while they're both crushed up against strangers at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. While Peter’s on the lookout for suspicious activity among the bundled up paradegoers, MJ’s trying to decide if calling the symbiote a euphemism—like her “little friend”—would be better or worse than bluntly calling it her “sentient killer parasite.”

_Parasite?! We are not a parasite! Don't call us that in front of Peter!_

Gwen had organized a small outing for out-of-state ESU students who were staying on campus for the holiday, and wanting to keep an eye on the parade for any supervillain attacks, Peter and MJ had volunteered to join as native New Yorker tour guides. 

Unfortunately, they didn't know that Gwen had already recruited Harry to come, too, and he won't stop reminding them all that he could have booked a parade route room at one of the luxury hotels in Columbus Circle.

"But then we wouldn't have the _ real _ parade experience with all the people and the music," says Gwen, standing on her toes to see over people's shoulders. 

"You mean freezing our asses off with a bunch of tourists?" says Harry, and Gwen gives him an unamused glare.

MJ scans overhead easily from her height, feeling Peter's tension match her own as he stands beside her, also on his toes. It's icy cold out, and while the wind makes everyone else chatter their teeth and sniffle their red runny noses, MJ feels perfectly content letting the chill sink into their skin until she's numb, her earmuffs snugly drowning out all the loud noises. 

But her peaceful moment is short lived as a swirl of sand comes tunnelling through the sky, getting larger as it comes closer to the parade route.

“Whoa, what is that? A giant flock of birds?” someone in the crowd asks.

“Looks like a twister or sand tornado, but in New York?” 

“More like a polluted_ smog _ twister."

MJ doesn’t think it’s any of those things, and sure enough, the amorphous cloud of sand settles atop a float and condenses into the shape of a burly man, roaring before he scatters into sand molecules again, growing to double his size.

She feels Peter squeeze her palm reassuringly before he lets go, but when she turns to kiss him goodbye, he’s already disappeared into the crowd.

"Did Parker seriously just run away at the first sign of danger?" Harry scoffs. 

When MJ makes to follow Peter, Harry stops her, telling her she'd be safer sticking with him. "Definitely safer than wherever Parker's hiding," he assures her, squaring his shoulders out proudly. "You can really see a person's true colors in a crisis."

"Yeah, yeah, you're a real saint, Harry," MJ says distractedly, watching the skies for a familiar red and blue figure. She almost cries with relief when she sees him emerge and start swinging toward the parade.

When the next balloon float—a big green Hulk—makes its way down Fifth Avenue, Spider-Man leaps onto it and scurries across the bouncing surface toward the sandy storm that's blowing through the parade and tearing everything up. He manages to snatch someone falling off a float when the sandstorm breaks off the float's mast, but his stickiness seems to be failing him, and he has to shoot out extra webs to hold onto the wall and the civilian at the same time.

His movements are also unusually heavy and clumsy when he’s not swinging on his webs. He still makes the jumps, though just barely, and has to stagger to his feet each time. MJ can barely breathe as she watches. 

Spider-Man drops down onto a giant balloon of himself next, tumbles across the bright red and blue surface, then launches himself onto a nearby rooftop to cut off the sandstorm’s path toward the marching band. But he misses his landing and falls into the band instead, colliding with a tuba that gets stuck on his arm, flailing his limbs as he spins out of the way. 

When he disentangles himself, Spider-Man shoots a web and frantically swings away from the parade, going on the run to lure the Sandman away from the crowd. The storm reforms into the shape of a burly Sandman, who absorbs each blow and lets Spider-Man’s fist shoot right through his sandy body, immediately reforming himself.

"Ouch! Looks like Spidey isn't doing so hot!" Harry exclaims, pointing out the obvious. He sticks his phone higher into the air to record the fight, which is mostly the Sandman pummeling Spider-Man with his massive sandy fists. 

"He's going to get himself killed!" Gwen exclaims, her eyes glued to the skies. "Why can't he leave this stuff to the NYPD?!"

Clods of sand crumble off with each hit against Spider-Man's head, then quickly merge back into the giant fists, creating a relentless barrage of punches that he can’t seem to break through. The crowd reacts collectively with each devastating blow that Spider-Man takes, hissing and gasping as he doubles over and falls on his knees. 

Covering her mouth with both hands, MJ tries not to succumb to the weak feeling in her own knees, or the panic rising in her chest. What’s wrong with Peter? What’s going on with his powers?

The crush of parade-goers starts shoving in one direction as the police begin moving the barricades to herd the crowd toward evacuation routes. She needs to get to Spider-Man before the evacuation reaches them and she can’t slip away.

“Shit, what if we're witnessing Spider-Man’s last fight ever?” exclaims Harry, stretching his phone over MJ’s face to follow the swirl of sand picking up and dropping the masked vigilante like a ragdoll.

MJ winces at a few more close calls, and when she can't take it anymore, starts pushing her through the crowd and away from her friends, despite Harry's protests. 

"You're not seriously going to go looking for Parker?!"

“Just get everyone else out of there!” she shouts over her shoulder, and takes off, cutting through the throngs of confused and panicked parade-goers. "This city has got to stop having parades!" she pants to herself, rounding into an alleyway. 

Rage emerges fully suited on the rooftop of the adjacent building and starts climbing up the highrise on the other side until she can reach the next float balloon that comes down the parade route. 

Darting through the chaos and sliding over the surface of the floats where the crowd can't see her, Rage could be mistaken for a shadow, a rippling piece of black polyurethane blowing in the wind. 

She finally catches up to the Sandman and Spider-Man, who seems dead on his feet, still swinging his fists but barely making any impact on Sandman. MJ launches herself to sit atop the water tower above them, in hopes of dropping down behind the supervillain while he's distracted with pummeling Spider-Man. 

From here MJ can see a second attacker coming towards them, flying through the air with some sort of jetpack. Fucking great.

He looks like Scorcher, if Scorcher’s face was stretched out into a grotesque red goblin face. His wild eyes dart around without recognizing Rage, but he takes aim at her with rabid glee. She dives out of the way, and the intense heat of his flame-shooter's fire almost singes her without even touching her.

The flames catch on the scrapped junk that's collected on the rooftop and go tearing across the dry debris, forming a wall that separates her from Spider-Man. Goblin Scorcher shoots another blaze that melts through the metal structure holding the water tower, and it comes tumbling down with a crash and throws all of them off their feet. 

But the water does nothing to quell the flames when it goes cascading into the streets, and MJ knows she has to put it out before the fire spreads to the adjacent rooftops. 

Her head whips back around when she hears Peter scream, and she watches a metal pipe skewer him through his side. He falls to his hands and knees, and her stomach lurches. She almost wants to throw up, but with the symbiote's help, she steels her nerves and wills her lunch to stay down.

Dragging himself by the feet, Spider-Man is still trying to get up, his body heaving with the effort. The goblin Scorcher is advancing on him from the right, and Sandman comes stomping towards him from the left, forming his fists into massive sledgehammers. 

Paralyzed with fear and indecision, MJ doesn’t know who to attack first, or if she’s supposed to save Spider-Man and run—or would he want her to stop the fires from spreading and save the inhabitants? 

That's the moment she realizes how utterly alone and _ screwed _ she is—no plan, no guy in the chair, and the one person she’s always counted on to save the day is the one who needs saving.

What would Spider-Man do in her shoes? 

MJ shakes her head—she's not Spider-Man, and whatever he was doing only led to his ass getting kicked. She needs to think like an escape artist, someone who can get out of the trickiest situations despite the odds. 

What would the Black Cat do?

_ Stop reacting, and stop letting them take control of the fight! Stop fighting by their rules, because there are no rules! _

The Felicia voice in her head reminds MJ that "resisting a more powerful opponent head on will only result in defeat," and that she needs to adjust her attack to the situation at hand. 

Taking a deep breath, MJ throws her right arm out and wills the symbiote to form a massive flat spade and brings it swinging around at Sandman, who prepares himself for the blow. 

Except MJ isn’t trying to hit him.

She makes the biomass shovel scoop up a clod of his sandy body and closes around it like a fist. The Sandman roars with fury and pain as Rage tears a piece of him away to put out Scorcher's fire, scattering bits of him across the swath of flames. The heat makes her sweat when her shovel arms hover too close, and for a moment, it feels like the symbiote is melting.

But she does it again anyway with her other arm, swinging it around to scoop a chunk off the Sandman's other side and put out the rest of the fire, letting the sand rain down around Spider-Man, who seems oblivious to the chaos surrounding him. Curled up on the ground, he's not moving anymore, and MJ suddenly doesn't care about anyone or anything else. She dives toward him.

Cackling and swerving erratically in the air, Scorcher attempts to get in her way, but with a vicious blow she smashes a big black mace-fist onto his head, shattering the domed helmet. His jetpack splutters with leaking fuel, and he goes crashing to the streets below.

When she finally gets to Spider-Man, his eye-lenses blink weakly up at her; one has been smashed in and the other one is clicking like something's broken, and he rasps out, "Rage… I need your help."

MJ turns to look at the metal rod sticking out of his side. The symbiote skin is rippling all around her in agitation, like a cat with its hackles up, and her hands are shaking. Her throat closes up, and she's trying very hard not to panic and fall apart. 

"Don't worry, my healing factor will take care of it," he reassures her, despite the excruciating pain tearing through his body all over—she can feel it pulsing from him. "I just… need a little help. Can't heal around a—around a telephone pole sticking through me, you know?"

He tries to chuckle, weakly, for her sake, and she nods her symbiote head at him.

Holding her breath, Rage grips the pole and yanks it out of Peter with a heavy grunt, even though it takes no real physical effort from her. The metal comes out cleanly, but a fresh gush of blood rushes out from the open wound. 

_ Michelle! We have to help Peter, he's dying! _

“I know, I know! What do I do? I don't know what to do! Fuck!” she shouts aloud, panicking and feeling useless. 

He's not healing fast enough and losing too much blood, and by the way his head is slumped over, Peter was also quickly drifting out of consciousness. 

Shaking him, MJ sobs, "Keep your eyes open! Look at me, look at me, Spider-Man!" 

When he doesn't react, an inescapable sense of doom and helplessness starts to overwhelm her. What's the use of all this power if she can't save the one person who matters? Her worst nightmare is coming to life right before her eyes as she watches him struggle to hold on. It's like watching her mom die all over again, and she can’t do anything to save either of them.

_ But you can! We can help Peter, like we helped you close up your guts! _ the symbiote barks. _ But he has to let us in, he has to choose. _

_ What does that mean? How does he choose? _ MJ asks, blinking away the burning tears. _ He’s barely awake! _

_ Then wake him up, dummy. _

MJ mentally shoots a death glare at Rage, and leans in close to Spider-Man’s ear, clearing her throat. "You know, when I said I liked it better broken," she begins in Rage’s rumbling voice, "I meant ruggedly scratched up. Or maybe even very mildly bruised from superheroics. _Not_ impaled in the fucking side and bleeding to death!"

"...What?"

"Peter!" MJ cries with relief when he stirs again, and the sight of his tired brown eye peeking through the broken eye lens fills her with more joy than ever before.

But he jerks away from her when he hears his name. "How do you know my name?! Who-who sent you? Are you one of them?" 

“One of who? I’m here to help_—_”

Spider-Man tries to scramble away from her, but groans loudly when his side gives out. His sharp movements cause a fresh pool of dark blood to seep out from his suit, and the sharp metallic smell makes her stomach lurch with fear. MJ reaches out with her inky arms to settle him down, but he flinches and grabs her forearms to hold her away from him.

“Stop trying to trick me!” His voice is cracking with terror, and MJ doesn’t think he has much time left before going into some sort of shock. 

"I'm not trying to trick you, I swear!" 

"Just shut up, shut up!" Peter hisses, voice muffled beneath his mask where it’s partially melted from goblin Scorcher’s flames.

This isn’t how MJ wanted to reveal herself to Peter, but she has no other way to get him to trust her, and she has to stop him from using up all his remaining strength in fighting her. 

"Mask off," she says out loud, and the symbiote slides off her face, exposing her head, letting her hair fall loose around her shoulders.

"It's me, Peter! Look at me, please, just look at me!" cries MJ, inching closer to him. "Peter, it's me! MJ!"

Still drifting in and out of consciousness, Peter thankfully doesn’t flinch when she shifts to cradle his head in her lap, but his eyes keep rolling to the back of his head, and she doesn't know if he understands what she's saying.

“Do you trust me, Peter? Will you let us help you? Please, please let us help you!" she pleads, wrapping her arms around him. 

He manages a weak nod, still a little delirious, and MJ decides that will have to be enough.

Swallowing her hot tears, she feels the symbiote seep out of her and melt into his body. The dark mass floods Peter's blood like an inky stain, attaching itself to his cells and slowly knitting him together again, strand by strand. Splitting apart and scattering as it intermingles with his cells, the creature looks for the broken tissue to heal and foreign debris to extract. It's excruciating yet wildly pleasurable at the same time, a sort of rapture ripping through her body as she shares in his pain and the immense power embedded in his cells.

Was this Peter's crazy superpowered genetic code, laid out in coiling strands of DNA? His radioactive blood cells splitting and mutating before her eyes, reacting to and combining with the symbiote? 

But an itchy, irritating sensation starts to form, and out of the dark comes an angry cackling of _ He's mine! _

Green ooze starts to wrestle with the symbiote, trying to wrench Peter's cells away from them.

_ No, he belongs to us! _Rage growls back, and the thick black mass surges against the sickly green substance, trying to swallow it, but the green substance retreats instead, and the prickling sensation of its presence disappears.

When the symbiote returns to MJ's body, a rush of bright electric colors burst and spin in her eyes, and she can't breathe in enough air to fill her lungs. 

Then, as quickly as it all came on, the radiant visions and piercing sensation disappear altogether, like a car's tail lights fading into the distance, and she’s left in the darkness again. 

-*-

_ Blinking his eyes open, Peter finds himself lying in the middle of an endless red desert, with nothing around him but sand and sky. Sand. Was there sand before? There’s nothing but sand now, nothing but buttery dunes rising and falling until they disappear into the horizon. _

_ Peter looks down and sees that his hands are red, too—filled with sand spilling from his palms? No, it’s wet, and it’s coming from his chest and into his hands. Blood. His blood is watering the desert, painting it crimson. _

_ He suddenly feels lonelier than he thinks he’s ever felt. At the same time, it’s a terribly familiar feeling, and he wonders if that’s supposed to be comforting. But his chest feels unbearably hollow, and he thinks he’s forgotten something very important. Something he needs to get back to. _

_ That's when a mocking laugh echoes behind him. Peter jerks his head around, but there’s nothing but the same stretch of sand and sky. The sand-blood keeps slipping through his fingers, and he is running out of time. _

_ Oh right, he’s bleeding. He’s turning the desert red. Will he be dead soon, or has he always been dead? _

_ Something cold presses against the opening in his chest, and Peter looks down to see familiar brown hands cupped over his heart in a desperate attempt to staunch the blood. He covers her hands with his own bloody ones and slowly tilts his head up to face MJ. _

_ "Let me in," she says wordlessly, her dark eyes burning into him, and she's all he can see. _

_ Peter nods, and she plunges her hand into his chest, reaching right into the cavity of his ribcage. They both gasp but don't take their eyes off each other. _

_ "What are you doing to me?" He asks, fighting the impulse to pull his chest apart wider for her. _

_ "Fixing you." _

_ The sun behind her shines a halo in her thick brown hair, brighter and brighter, until Peter has to squint to keep looking at her. He doesn't ever want to stop looking at her. _

_ "I thought…" the memory is just at the edge of his recollection and he reaches out to snatch it. "I thought you liked me better broken." _

_ A soft smile unfurls on her pink lips, and MJ looks radiant, beautiful. She has his heart in her palm, her fingers gently curled around the beating organ. _

_ When they both look down, a toxic-looking green ooze starts coming out of his chest and tries to climb up her arm, clawing at her as it tries to dig into her flesh. MJ's eyes go wide with surprise at first, but then they narrow in determination, and she fights it. _

_ An inky black ooze seeps out of MJ and overtakes the green liquid, wrestling it into submission until it retreats back inside Peter's chest. _

_ Peter hisses and shuts his eyes tightly at the stretch of his open chest, the raw feeling of her hand pulling out. He reaches his arms out into the darkness after her, but he can't find MJ, and a cold panic seizes his heart. _

_ That's when the blue sky and red sand begin to warp and compress, the landscape distorting into a giant figure with a spider on his chest. Racing the curving surface of his reality before he falls off, Peter is calling out for MJ but no sound will come out, and then he's sliding off the figure and into the abyss. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Symbiote smut might be coming up soon. Kindly let me know your thoughts on the matter before I subject you to it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT AM I EVEN DOING?
> 
> TW: gross science stuff, abduction, implied violence
> 
> Chapter track: [ Respond -- SUAHN](https://open.spotify.com/track/1qSDJ4YzY3MnCSLDYAoti7?si=_TJgvzjBRta5Wyj1miDsGA)

_ “Dear diary, my teen angst bullshit has a body count.” _

_ —Heathers (1998), dir. Michael Lehmann _

_ -*- _

After peeling the torn red and blue suit off of Peter's battered body, MJ slips right back into the familiar routine of tending to his wounds—except this time, he's unconscious and his healing factor isn't working fast enough. Angry welts and dark purple bruises mottle his body all over, and the cuts are still open and bleeding.

She uses up nearly all the medical supplies that Peter still keeps at his aunt’s place, and MJ makes a note to herself to restock the medkit in case something like this happens again. The thought of it makes her so tired.

MJ is particularly glad that May was too busy with preparing for FEAST's Thanksgiving dinner service to be home and see Peter in this state. At least his breathing is steady and regular again, and the gaping wound in his side is completely closed up, thanks to Rage. The healing skin is still crusted with dried blood, but at least it looks like he never got impaled by shrapnel there.

So much for rehearsing how that conversation would go—MJ hadn't planned to reveal herself by using the symbiote to save Peter's life, but here they are.

She caresses his scalp gently, running her fingers through his hair. He might not even remember what she told him when he wakes up, might think it was a hallucination, and she isn't sure which outcome she's hoping for.

_ Stop being scared, _ MJ orders herself_. _Peter deserves better from her.

But she feels numb, deep to her core, like there's an invisible curtain between her and reality. Even the symbiote is subdued and shy, shrinking until it's just a coldness sitting in her throat. She's in over her head, but there's no one she can turn to. Who could understand what she's going through, if not Peter? 

His chest rises softly with each breath, and MJ shifts to lay her head down next to him, so she can feel the heat from his side pressed up against her. 

"You better not die on me now, loser," she whispers. "Not when I finally got you. Not after everything we've gone through." When he doesn't stir, a tightness clenches in MJ's chest and she traces mindless patterns along the sheets. 

"I'm sorry I waited so long to tell you. I just didn't feel… I wasn't ready yet," she admits softly. "I wanted you to be my first, though—the first person that I tell, that is. I guess I don't really have anyone else I'd want to tell. But even if I did, I'd still tell you first."

She knows she's just rambling now, muttering to a sleeping Peter in the dark as if he could hear her, but it helps make the anxious, guilty weight in her chest melt away, bit by bit. His fingers twitch in her grasp, and she looks up.

"You didn't tell me," Peter says hoarsely, voice ragged from not speaking for hours. "I figured it out… well, I was like, thirty-three percent sure. Maybe."

"Peter!"

Sitting up, MJ throws her arms around him, and the symbiote starts ping-ponging around inside her chest like tiny fireworks. Peter's hands come up to rest against her back, and his hug is weak but it's still everything she could want right now.

Leaning back to stare at him some more, MJ sniffs and wipes at her eyes. Peter smiles at her and the room feels instantly warmer. 

"Hey."

"Hi, dork. You're alive."

"Seems like it. Thanks for saving my life, Em."

MJ lets out a watery chuckle. "No problem, Spidey. I'm only like, what? Fifty to seventy more saves behind, to catch up with you?"

"I don't think that's quite how it works," Peter says, smiling crookedly, "but I mean it. If you weren't there… I don't know what's going on with my powers, but I wouldn't have made it without you."

She shakes her head, refusing to accept that it ever got that close. "You'd have found some other way," she says with effort, her throat tight. "Though you probably need to take a break from patrolling, get some time to recharge."

"Maybe," Peter says noncommittally, not looking at her. 

"Especially if you lost your super healing—"

"I didn't lose it—"

"I'm serious, if you don't have your powers, how can you—"

"I'm fine!"

Breathing heavily, Peter clenches and unclenches his fists and closes his eyes. The warmth in the room suddenly feels muted, the light darkening around them.

"I didn't lose my powers," he insists sullenly, blinking his eyes open again.

"Okay." Pressing her lips together, MJ picks at some imaginary thread on her sweater. 

The sudden tension between them is palpable, like another presence in the room. It feels like that thing that Rage encountered inside Peter, a shadow hovering over them and trying to push her away. She stares at his hand still fisted around his sheets, her own fingers itching to reach for him. 

Peter throws his head back on his pillow and rubs his eyes. "I'm sorry, MJ. It's just… no matter how many times I get hit, I always get back up, you know? Except this time."

She slowly reaches over to sweep the hair off his clammy forehead. "It's okay to need help sometimes, Peter."

The heavy presence passes like a storm cloud, and the air feels lighter again.

He doesn't say anything, but he does relax his fist and reaches for her hand. When he laces their fingers together, MJ lets go of the breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and squeezes back.

"Stay with me?" says Peter, voice low and slightly trembling.

"I'm not going anywhere," MJ replies, rubbing her thumb against a callous on his palm. "I promise."

They lie like that in the dark, with him facing the ceiling and MJ curled up in the chair beside the bed, until Peter eventually drifts off to sleep again.

She must have nodded off at some point, too, because she jolts awake when her cell phone vibrates loudly on the nightstand. Cursing under her breath, she's about to lose it if it’s Harry again, texting her to come over and bunker down at his place.

But it’s a message from Gwen, asking if Michelle was okay and whether Peter made it out of the parade alright, since he wasn't answering any of her texts.

Squinting at the light from the screen, MJ sends back a quick reply and is about to put her phone down when an impulse strikes her. 

Knowing she should get out of the apartment the next day and give Peter some room to rest, MJ asks Gwen if she wants to hang out and fill in for Peter at FEAST's Friday dinner service. Gwen happily accepts, using almost as many exclamation points and emojis as Peter does.

_ Nerds_. She tucks her phone under the pillow and curls up next to Peter again.

-*-

"I'm so sorry I dragged everyone out to the stupid parade," says Gwen, tugging on disposable kitchen gloves. "And I can't believe I called it the '_ real _ parade experience', either. I've probably scarred everyone for life now."

Uncertain of how to reassure her, MJ just shrugs, tucking her frizzy bun under a hairnet. "You couldn't have known. I mean, statistically a supervillain attack on the parade was pretty high, but like several hundred thousand people made the same dumb decision to go out there yesterday, including yours truly."

"The Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade actually attracts over three million attendees," says Gwen, tying MJ's apron behind her back.

"Well, there you go then. Don't beat yourself up over it."

“I like to think that I’m somewhat more sensible and intelligent than the general masses,” Gwen replies, slumping her shoulders dejectedly. “But I guess if we live our lives trying to avoid danger in New York, we’d never go anywhere or do anything.”

Serving at the food bank and working with Gwen is helping MJ keep her mind off of everything—from how slow Peter's recovery is going, to what in the world she's going to say to him when he wakes up and is ready to talk about _ it_. 

Before she left for college, MJ used to volunteer at the shelter with May whenever she could. It was a good reason for her to avoid going home, when she couldn't hide out at Decathlon or the library, and doing something with her hands gave her a sense of purpose and control. 

Unsurprisingly, Gwen figures out the routine in the kitchen and out front in the serving line pretty quickly, and keeps everything moving efficiently during the meal service. It's a huge weight off of MJ's shoulders, not having to be functional and alert. Too busy expending all of her energy into not worrying about Peter, she's not in the state of mind to handle her usual duties.

Afterwards, the two of them are the last ones to leave the shelter, still mopping up the floors after the tables and chairs have been stacked up against the walls. Sensing that MJ's mind is elsewhere, Gwen convinces her to take some funny selfies with their hair nets on before they head out, and MJ obliges, grateful for the distraction.

Even though they don't really know each other, MJ finds it oddly easy to talk to Gwen. She isn't worried about offending her or filling awkward silences, and Gwen seems to be able to roll with anything MJ dishes out, which also kind of reminds her of Peter.

Gwen's good at friendly small talk—the kind of mindless chatter MJ doesn't have to think too hard about, though Gwen manages to sound like she really cares. She tells MJ about ESU classes and clubs as they're walking to the train station, from which professors to avoid to the organizations Gwen’s involved with, which are a lot.

MJ is still waiting to hear back from ESU about her transfer, but she feels pretty confident about getting in. She doesn't mention this to Gwen, though, and Gwen doesn’t ask why MJ is so interested in another school’s curriculum.

"Professor Warren is a bit of a creep, but he's the academic authority on molecular genetics and cloning," explains Gwen, "and I might need him to be my senior thesis advisor if I do the project I have in mind."

"Gross," MJ frowns. "Can't anyone else be your advisor?"

"Not really, unfortunately. He's the department chair, and my research is on genetic modification and replication through viral therapy.”

“Hmm. Do you happen to know anything about parasites?”

Gwen's eyes shine excitedly. "Actually, OsCorp has been researching into what we can learn from parasites and their ability to infiltrate a closed system. Some can control their host's behavior directly by infecting the nervous system, or peripherally, like a puppeteer pulling the strings to make a marionette move,” she explains. 

“For example, the Cordyceps fungus controls its ant host’s muscles to manipulate its legs and mandibles, but leaves the brain intact. Then the fungus eats through and replaces the ant’s tissues with its own spores until it fills up and bursts from the dead host’s exoskeleton, scattering its spores as far as possible to infect new hosts.”

"Delightful, Stacy. Thanks for that mental image," MJ deadpans, trying to hide her fascination with the macabre details. "So, if its brain is left intact, is the host ant aware of what's happening to them?"

Gwen shrugs. “Probably. Do you think that would be worse than not knowing what’s going on? Because when a parasite hijacks its host’s brain to control their behavior, the host may not even know that anything wrong is happening to them.”

Well, that’s something for MJ to consider. 

“Some parasites that enter their host’s nervous system can cause psychiatric symptoms like agitation or delusions, and extreme changes in behaviour," continues Gwen, counting off on her fingers. "Like becoming uncharacteristically rude and aggressive, or careless. Prolonged exposure to some parasites may also alter the host's brain chemistry and cause long-term to maybe permanent behavior problems.”

MJ wouldn't say she's been _ uncharacteristically _ rude or aggressive, just the regular amount. But she still asks, “Are there symbiotic parasite-host relationships?”

Gwen considers MJ’s question. “A symbiote is just a parasite that doesn’t harm you when it uses you, until it does. It’s semantics, really. Some hosts even exhibit protective tendencies toward their parasites or their parasite’s offspring. Like the so-called 'bodyguard manipulation' that some wasp’s do to caterpillars or ladybugs when laying their eggs in their host-victim's bodies."

“Oh. That's super gross, too.” MJ glances at Gwen out of the side of her eye, who returns her look with an eyebrow quirk, and the two burst out laughing.

"I knew you were a strange one, Stacy."

When they find that the nearest subway station has been closed for construction, Gwen suggests that they take a cab instead, but MJ hesitates, not eager to spend money she doesn't really have. With Harvard's financial aid covering tuition, room and board, her on campus job is just enough to cover her other living expenses, but anything beyond a metrocard was not in her budget, especially if she is—fingers-crossed—moving back to New York next semester.

But Gwen insists on paying for the cab. "I'm supposed to take one anyway, one of my dad's rules. No public transportation after ten PM."

"Ten?"

"He's a cop," Gwen shrugs. "I had to negotiate him down from 'sundown,' as if I'm about to turn into pumpkins or something."

While they debate outside of the empty subway station between taking a cab and walking to the next station, MJ starts to sense a person coming towards them from Gwen's side of the street, their heavy footsteps on the wet asphalt scraping closer and closer. She can smell their ill intent like a stink radiating from their sweat. 

Tall and menacing, the figure is looming behind the blonde now, and MJ's mind races, trying to figure out how she can take him out without exposing the symbiote to Gwen. Maybe she can lunge and punch the guy with her regular human fist. But if he has a gun, he might still get to Gwen first.

MJ is so fixated on the man approaching Gwen from behind that she doesn't notice the arm coming around her face, and before the symbiote can even stir awake, a heavy sleepiness clouds her head and her eyelids drift close, until darkness surrounds her.

_ -*- _

MJ wakes up to the sound of men talking nearby. It's still dark out, so not too much time could have passed, but she can't tell where they are yet. It smells like concrete and musty pipes, maybe a warehouse or construction site.

She doesn't open her eyes all the way and tries to take in their surroundings through the crack of her eyelids, so their kidnappers don't realize she's awake yet. Plastic zip ties are cutting into her wrists, and something is strapped across her chest to keep her fastened to the chair she's in, likely duct tape.

“Where’s the pick up van?" a voice asks anxiously. "They were supposed to be here an hour ago. What if _ he _ shows up before they get here?"

"We _ want _ Spider-Man to show up," another voice snaps, "that's why the boss wanted us to take her. He wants him before the big rally."

“Which one’s Spider-Man’s girlfriend? The blonde?"

"Nah, didn't you see that Bugle photo last summer? It's the tall one, the black chick."

"Who’s the other one then?"

"I dunno, they were together so we grabbed both of them—"

"Fuck, now we’ve got an extra witness. What are we supposed to do with her?"

_ There's three of them, _ hisses the symbiote as it awakens, smacking its maw in MJ's head. Three _ delicious, stupid brains… _

_ These fuckers are keeping us from getting back to Peter, _ MJ thinks angrily, and her outrage fuels the creature. 

What if Peter wakes up alone and confused, looking for her? What if he thinks she just left him? She promised she would stay.

MJ hears someone stir next to her and groan groggily. 

"Stay still," she whispers under her breath, keeping her lips from moving.

"Michelle?" Gwen whispers back. "What happened? Did we get taken?"

"Shhh… yeah, looks like it. You okay?"

"I think so. I think they drugged us… I still feel dizzy," Gwen whispers. "What are we going to do?"

"We're gonna get out of here. Once I figure out a plan, that is."

"What about Spider-Man? Doesn't he usually save people in situations like this?”

MJ's breath catches when Peter's ashen face flashes in her mind, but she shakes her head, reminding herself that he’s alive. “He’s not coming.”

Gwen is quiet except for the shallow breaths of someone trying to stave off a panic attack, and MJ wants to look at her and let her know they'll be alright. But it's hard to feel hopeful when they're both tied up like this. MJ tries anyway.

“I have an idea,” she says to Gwen, “but don’t freak out, okay?”

“Okay, I can do that.”

"I really mean it, you cannot freak out, even though you’ll really want to," MJ whispers. "Maybe you should close your eyes. And ignore the sounds.”

"That doesn't help me not freak out!" Gwen hisses back.

"Shut up over there!"

"Fuck, here we go," MJ groans as their abductors come over when they realize that both of their captives are awake now. Rage curls and uncurls excitedly inside her. "Just stay calm, I've got this."

When their abductors circle her and Gwen, MJ asks, "Where are we?"

"Far away from any help, sweetheart," one of them sneers.

"So no one can hear you scream?"

"What? No, no one's gonna hear you scream, baby—"

"So if anything happens out here, no one's going to know until it's too late?" MJ continues, glancing sideways at Gwen to make sure she's alright.

The guy grabs her by the chin and tilts her face up, and shines a blinding LED flashlight into her face. She scowls and tries to turn her head away, but he jerks her back to face him and growls, "All you need to know is that you're not going anywhere unless we want you to, both of you. And we've got all night, so we're gonna need a way to pass the time. Got any ideas, girly?"

MJ's stomach gurgles. She looks up at their kidnappers, and raises her eyebrows at them. "I'm hungry."

"I got somethin' for your mouth," one of them laughs, gesturing at his crotch and the others join in, jeering and laughing.

The fear that’s been driving MJ for the last two days—fear for her friends’ safety, fear for Peter’s life, fear of being found out—is quickly taken over by a cold anger, sharp and remorseless.

_ Crunchy, greasy morsels… lets gnash their bones… _

"You got your eyes closed, Gwendolyn?" 

When Gwen squeaks out a "yes" MJ takes a deep breath and mutters under her breath, "Alright, goopster. I guess it’s dinner time."

-*-

Gwen is still in shock, that much is clear. 

Unmoving, she stares glassily at the dark red stains across the cement floors and walls that mark where each of their abductors were previously standing. The warehouse is otherwise empty except for her and MJ, and a chilly draft creeps through the air. 

“Those were OsCorp men, I recognized their gear…” says Gwen, piecing it all together. “Why would they—what did they want with us?”

"To use me to lure out Spider-Man, except they didn't realize I'm… nothing special to him, just some civilian he saved once," explains MJ, biting on her lip.

Everything is unraveling all at the same time, and MJ can't keep up. Peter knows about Rage, and now so does Gwen, but he's hurt and OsCorp is using her to get to Spider-Man, and Gwen could have been killed just because she was there. It's all too much.

MJ's blood is still boiling from the encounter, the fear and anger previously coursing through her veins giving way to the phenethylamine high from consuming all those brains. She feels like she just drank a gallon of syrupy dark chocolate; her bones feel heavy while her head is buzzing with energy.

Meanwhile, Gwen’s stunned silence is punctuated by bouts of angry outbursts, like she’s trying to hold it in but the rage keeps bursting out in waves. 

Maybe the real shock hasn't hit her yet, because Gwen seems unusually unphased by how MJ eliminated their attackers, and more disturbed that it was her employer who was the one that sent them after MJ.

"How dare they?! Picking up hostages off the street like the fucking gestapo? Like, what the _ fuck— _"

"Gwen. Gwen! Look at me. Breathe okay? You're okay. We're both okay."

Though she closes her eyes and nods, Gwen is still seething, her anger radiating from her like a weapon. "How am I supposed to walk into OsCorp next week like nothing happened? Like they didn't just drug us and then kidnap us with armed guards?!"

"But you _ have _ to pretend like nothing happened. You can't let on that you know anything, not to anyone,” says MJ. “Those assholes didn't mean to take you along with me, and we got away before whatever hand off was supposed to happen. OsCorp might not know about you at all, so we should keep it that way."

"And you've already taken care of the only people who saw me," states Gwen, her eyes sweeping across the bloody scene around them. 

She had kept her cool throughout the entire ordeal remarkably well, and MJ suspects that she may have even taken a peek a few times, judging by the grim and sober look on her face. 

"Can I see it again?" Gwen asks after another quiet pause. "The… symbiote?"

Willing the creature not to interact with Gwen and to avoid spooking her, MJ holds out her hand and lets the thick black ooze envelop her like a glove, veining up her forearm. 

"Whoa… Is it organic? Looks like some kind of biomass… can I touch it?" She glances up at MJ, her blue eyes wide with fascination. MJ nods, and Gwen takes her arm gently by the wrist and inspects the ooze. "It's cold. Does it feel cold against your skin or have you achieved homeostasis?"

"The latter, I guess?" replies MJ, 

It's oddly soothing to have Gwen touching her and inspecting her. The feathery strokes of her fingers remind MJ of Felicia's preening, though with an eye for scientific curiosity instead of beauty. But maybe those are the same things to Gwen. 

Even the symbiote is enjoying her touch, wrapping itself around MJ's arm with an elaborate veining pattern.

_ Show off _, she thinks to the symbiote.

_ She likes us! We're glad we didn't crunch her up before. _

"Wow. This is incredible," says Gwen, oblivious to MJ and Rage's internal dialogue, and traces the inky lattice patterns against MJ's forearm. "And you found this at Oscorp?"

“More like I... stole it from a lab,” MJ admits, and proceeds to tell Gwen the short version of how she came to acquire the symbiote from OsCorp, conveniently leaving out the part about Peter getting kidnapped and the Black Cat's involvement, as well as her own personal connection to the case. MJ explains that she was investigating an unknown treatment that Oscorp was testing on low income patients in the outer boroughs, and found the symbiote after sneaking into one of the company's facilities.

"I knew it! I knew there was something weird going on with Peter, and it makes so much sense now! It's because of this-this symbiote thing, isn't it? He's covering for you?" 

"Uh... yes?” says MJ, figuring she can pin Peter's Spider-Man antics on Rage. “But Gwen, you can't talk to anyone about this, not even Peter. Forget you saw any of it, forget that I told you any of this."

"Right, no, I get it." Gwen rubs her eyes tiredly and takes her headband off to comb her disheveled hair with her fingers. When she slides the band back on, her hair catches and sticks up funny, and there's still a fleck of blood on her pale cheek that MJ doesn't have the heart to wipe off.

Gwen takes her headband off again to tidy her hair and have something to do with her trembling hands. When she keeps catching knots in her hair, the blonde growls and flings her headband to the ground.

"Ugh, I'm so sick of my hair! Is there blood in it? Doesn't even matter—I can't believe that just happened. What are we supposed to do? What if someone finds out—what do we even say?!"

"Hey, Gwen. Look at me," says MJ, using the same firm but calm tone whenever she's helping Peter through a panic attack. "You're okay. We're both okay."

Taking a deep breath, Gwen nods wearily. “Fine. We cover it up. Pretend nothing happened.”

"Look, I believe that the truth belongs to everyone, it's why I want to be a journalist," says MJ, flicking at Gwen's errant lock of hair. "But you saw how dangerous it is to get mixed up with all this superhero business."

"I _ know_, Michelle," Gwen replies, irritated. Her eyes are red and she looks both exhausted and wired at the same time. "My dad was police captain for a long time, you don't need to tell me how to be careful with sensitive information, or how dangerous the world can be."

"Okay, okay. I just don't want you to get hurt," MJ says defensively, pulling the symbiote back inside of her, and she's struck by a sense of deja vu; she's been on the other side of this conversation with Peter before. Too many times.

"I've heard that one plenty," Gwen shrugs, giving voice to MJ's thoughts. "But you can't actually protect and save everyone all the time, you know. I'll be careful, though, I promise."

"That's all I can ask for," says MJ, throwing an arm around Gwen's shoulders, and starts steering her out of the grisly warehouse. "Alright, let's get you home, Gwendolyn. I already ate, but I bet you’re starving." 

_ -*- _

"Do you think it could be alien in origin? Like, could it have come from space?" suggests Peter. He winces when the split in his lip opens up again.

"You'd know better than I do what space aliens look like," says MJ, turning to face him. She's crowding him in his twin bed, her legs tangled in his. 

They've just spent the last hour going over how MJ found the symbiote and what she knows about the creature, which isn't much. 

"Or do you think it's synthetically created, like some sort of AI embedded into a biological host?" asks Peter, linking their fingers and swinging their arms in the air. 

MJ shrugs nonchalantly, even though her stomach is doing flips. She hasn't told Peter about the kidnapping yet, rationalizing to herself that she shouldn't overwhelm him with too much just yet; the symbiote bomb was a big one to drop, and she's just relieved he seems to be taking it so well.

If he knew that she and Gwen were attacked while he was out cold and recovering instead of crawling around the city, he might get up and try to patrol now. 

She's giving up one secret for another, and the lies start to stack slowly.

So MJ lets him play twenty questions about the symbiote instead, and takes advantage of the opportunity to watch him talk excitedly, his Adam’s apple bobbing and hands gesturing like the Peter she knows. 

She should be satiated from their recent feeding frenzy, but Peter always makes her hungry for more of him. Maybe it's been that way since before the symbiote.

"You know what made me suspect a tiny bit that Rage was you? It was something they—_ you _—said after patrol once, about messing with me."

"What can I say? I've got a recognizable brand," she replies, lifting both shoulders up. "If you don't watch out, Rage merchandise may outsell Spider-Man underwear someday."

Peter laughs and winces again, licking at the split in his lip. He hasn’t recovered as much as Spider-Man should have by now, but he’s doing better, and Peter claims that he feels like he's gotten more sleep in the last few days than he's gotten in weeks. 

MJ steals glances at the dark circles under his eyes but tries to take him at his word. "You sure you don't need more time to rest?"

"I'm feeling much better," Peter insists. He sits up and rolls over on top of her, holding her wrists up over her head. "See?"

His body is heavy and warm on top of her, and MJ can feel his growing arousal against her thigh.

"Mmm… oh, I see it all right." She wriggles her hips against him, lining up his hardness between her legs. That makes a mischievous smile crack across his face, and he leans in to kiss her.

MJ kisses him back fiercely, pouring everything she's been feeling in the last few weeks into that kiss—the uncertainty, the hunger, the need to show him how she feels. A thick haze takes over her, and the only thought in her mind is chasing that high that only Peter can give her—give_ them_.

She quickly pulls her sweater over her head and starts unzipping her jeans. Peter's eyes darken as he eyes her all over, and he impatiently yanks off her pants for her. MJ topples over in the bed, kicking off the denim and giggling, and Peter dives in after her, working his lips down her neck.

"Show me your... suit," he says between kisses. "I want to see it. I want to see all of you."

Her breath catches and she bites her lip. "What? Oh, um..." MJ feels more exposed showing this part of her to Peter than actually being completely naked in front of him. 

"If you're okay with that?" he says quickly, pulling back to look at her. 

_ Yes! Yes! Yes! _Rage cries out in her head 

_ What if he doesn't like it? _

_ He will! He does! _

Swallowing thickly, MJ decides to trust the symbiote—her gut? She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, letting the lattice of black ooze expand across her naked body, clinging tightly against her skin all the way up her neck, leaving her head uncovered. 

Peter stares up and down at the shiny black coating, almost in awe. His brows are furrowed in concentration, like he's trying to solve a puzzle, as his eyes trace the lines of her body. MJ exhales slowly, trying to keep still as he inspects her and her suit, and tries not to shiver when he licks his lips absent-mindedly.

Slowly, Peter reaches out to rest his fingertips against her collarbone, over the inky surface, and the symbiote shivers in pleasure. Then he trails his fingers down between her breasts, and his touch lights up her entire body.

"Let me touch her," Peter says, quietly but firmly. The shiny black membrane responds by parting beneath and around his hand, letting his palm press directly against MJ's bare skin, over her heart. 

She doesn't know how to explain to him that there's no real boundary between the symbiote's skin and her own skin, at least not in sensation and touch; she can feel his hands on the black ooze as if his palms were rubbing her soft skin beneath directly.

"More," he tells the symbiote, and it obeys, retracting further and baring more and more of MJ's breasts to him. He hums approvingly and cups her with both hands, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples. She moans softly and leans into him.

The thick black skin pulses and stretches itself over Peter's hands, sealing them against MJ's breasts. He looks up at her. "Did you make it do that…?"

She grins conspiratorially, biting her bottom lip. "Maybe. Or maybe it's got a mind of its own." A soft exhale escapes her lips. "Anyway, your hands feel nice."

Leaning in to kiss her, Peter slowly moves his palms down her waist, and she desperately wants to feel more of him. MJ closes her eyes and basks in the sensation of his hands running all over her body, and the tingling of the symbiote rippling and fluidly reforming around his hands.

His touch leaves a burning trail behind, and she feels like she's on fire.

"Show me more of her," he demands, and a gap in the suit forms around her hard stomach. Peter presses a kiss against the exposed brown skin there, sending a shiver of pleasure up MJ's spine, and desire burns in her gut. 

His lips chase the gap in the suit as it stretches lower and lower, revealing more of her body to him, until he has his mouth between her legs, licking her folds directly. 

"Oh my _ god_, Peter," she gasps, squeezing her thighs around his head. His hands come around to grip her by the hips, and his fingers dig into the thick symbiote skin coating her curves. 

_ He wants to eat you right up, _Rage trills excitedly in her head. 

_ Shut up, you're killing the mood, _MJ shoots back sternly.

_ We're good at killing anything— _

_ Seriously, shut up! _

Her breaths come out shallow, and she's torn between quieting the symbiote and chasing the delicious pressure building in her lower belly.

When he comes up for air, Peter stares at MJ with her legs spread before him, the black suit barely covering her body anymore. He wipes his mouth.

"Okay, okay, I want her naked again," Peter tells the symbiote eagerly, sitting up on his knees and unbuckling his belt. 

It complies willingly, and the black membrane on MJ's body shivers and sinks back into her skin, leaving her completely bare to him. 

Peter's jaw drops. “Whoa.” 

“I know, right?” says MJ, looking down at her bare arms and chest. "I still can’t believe this is happening to me—"

“I mean you, you’re incredible,” says Peter, putting his hands on both sides of her waist.

MJ tries to give him a sarcastic huff, but her breath hitches and her heart feels like it's filled to the brim with so much warmth for him that it's about to overflow. 

"This isn't too weird?" she asks quietly.

Peter chuckles softly. "No, yeah, this is pretty weird, I'll admit. But I like weird."

"_ You're _ weird," she retorts out of habit, but there's no bite at all in it. He smiles easily back at her, and it really does feel like the easiest thing in the world, succumbing to Peter and doing as he says. She's never felt safer with anyone, not even herself.

Climbing onto Peter’s lap, MJ gently runs her long fingers through his hair, then tugs it sharply when she lowers herself onto him with a loud moan. His cock slides into her warm wet cunt, and she feels the symbiote spread her apart for him until Peter bottoms out inside her. 

He groans when she starts to grind her hips slowly in his lap, and she watches him from under her heavy lidded gaze, lips parted. 

"Yes, just like that, Peter, right there…"

It feels different this time, now that Peter knows about the symbiote; now that he’s seen it and touched it, now that he knows what she’s really like inside.

MJ starts off slow, feeling his entire length push and pull out of her, then faster and faster, and the pressure keeps building up inside her until she’s clawing at him, desperate for release. 

After he pulls out, she reaches down to run her fingers through his cum dripping down her thighs, and brings them to her mouth to lick them clean.

"Oh, fuck, MJ..." Peter groans, still throbbing and half hard for her. A soft smile settles on his face again. "Hungry?"

"For you? Always," MJ replies, trying to sound devilish and seductive. But her voice comes out breathy and adoring, and she doesn't care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, thanks for coming along for the ride! This chapter has been sitting in my drafts at like 95% done for *forever* but the recent kudos and comments were just the push I needed 💕  
What did you think of the thinggg??


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! This story is not dead! I'm just getting performance anxiety as we get into the final act!
> 
> CW: symbiote smut, Harry being an ass
> 
> Chapter track:[Orange by Ivy Lab](https://open.spotify.com/track/6cHgKzR8TImJbTmIJxt9mC?si=IdumAJkIQ628ELyzE3gZJQ)

_My body is a haunted _

_ house that I am lost in._

_There are no doors but there are knives _

_ and a hundred windows._

_—Jacqui Germain_

_===_

When she receives the thick ESU package in the mail, anxiety prickles inside MJ's stomach until she opens it, and then relief takes over—she got in.

Letting out a slow breath, MJ skims the acceptance letter and accompanying brochures, absorbing maybe half of the words. She was admitted to ESU’s journalism program, but has been wait-listed for on-campus housing, so she'll need to figure out how to avoid being homeless next semester.

There's no way she's moving back in with her father, if he even still has the apartment, and Peter’s shoebox-sized single dorm couldn’t fit both of them, even if ESU didn’t evict her immediately.

Plus, she wants to surprise Peter in person when she's back in New York for winter break—and for good. She can’t wait for the look on his face when she tells him, and debates between letting it slip out casually or building up to the news.

It's a little surreal—or too real, actually—now that MJ’s holding the letter in hand and frantically thinking about all the logistics and planning she’s put off all semester.

Her mind runs through calculations of how much she’s saved from her on-campus jobs over the last year, the amount of tuition deposit that isn’t covered by financial aid, and how much it would cost to move her stuff back to New York. She could list her furniture and dorm appliances for sale and donate the rest, make some quick cash and have fewer things to ship. Her personal book collection would have to come with her, obviously, but the rest of her things she won’t really miss.

MJ doesn't think she'll miss Harvard much either, at least no more than any other place she’s ever lived. Her suite-mates are all right, and she enjoys her spoken word group enough. But there was always a lingering feeling in the back of her mind that she was just biding her time in Cambridge, waiting for something. She’ll probably miss her morning runs along the Charles and the secret nooks she found in the library stacks. But that was more for the familiarity of a routine—replicable and comforting in its ordinariness.

On some level, MJ feels like she's been trying to get home her entire life. Her childhood house wasn't really a home, just a place for her parents' nightly screaming matches, and after her mother died and her father lost the house, the shitty apartment MJ and her father moved into was definitely not a home.

She misses the apartment she sublet with Peter last summer. That almost felt like home.

Maybe there is no real concept of a home beyond herself, outside of her own body, the one space that has really belonged to her. Maybe.

Clutter fills the attic of her skull, and her chest is the empty hearth room. Her stomach—the kitchen, bleach-washed until it was bloodless again. Meanwhile, the symbiote creeps through her body like a black cat wandering from room to room, quietly padding down the hallways and corridors of her veins, maybe settling onto a plush, pulsing organ for a nap.

But her vague sense of rootlessness and limited funds are the least of MJ’s worries at the moment.

Shortly after the Thanksgiving Day Parade attack, Norman Osborn announced that he'd be running for mayor of New York City, claiming that the incumbent hasn't been doing enough to prevent supervillain attacks and was relying too much on that "dangerous renegade" Spider-Man.

"This city doesn't need superheroes, it needs a real leader! It needs law and order under a strong hand," declared Norman in his press conference announcing his campaign.

Unsurprisingly, The Bugle is his loudest advocate, and their website posts a series of exclusive interviews with OsCorp's CEO, who appears to be in the peak of health; brawny, loud, physically confident.

MJ studies him with an obsessively keen eye, noting how his sharp aquiline nose hooks down like some sort of predatory bird—no, a scavenger, a carrion feeder—and how his triangular jaw accentuates his ghoulish sneer.

In the interviews, Norman attributes his sudden and recent return to health to OsCorp's "revolutionary medical breakthroughs from years of research and development."

"It's truly amazing how much can be accomplished for the good of humanity when a company like OsCorp devotes its resources into scientific advances, rather than concentrating on war profiteering, or, say, colluding with quasi-government agencies," says Norman, taking another shot at Stark Industries without naming names.

But as much as Norman's suspiciously sudden return to health is unsettling, his political agenda is outright alarming. On top of his hard-on-crime and anti-Spider-Man platform, Norman is campaigning to expand the Sokovia Accords to compel registration of all supers in the city, whether or not they're involved with international conflicts or organizations.

"No longer will New York taxpayers be footing the bill for these supers' destructive antics! They will be held accountable, starting with revealing and registering their real identities. No more hiding behind masks!"

Theories of an imposter Spider-Man and even his death have been circulating online for weeks, but the rumors that bother MJ the most are the ones accusing Spider-Man of purposefully going into hiding.

The Bugle claims that Osborn's public call to unmask is what drove the webslinger underground, accusing Spider-Man of being a coward who would leave the city vulnerable just to protect his identity—and to keep his unsavory secrets from getting out.

It all makes sense now, why OsCorp was going after Spider-Man so hard at Thanksgiving in sending both Sandman and that screwed up version of Scorcher after him, and why they tried to kidnap and use MJ to lure him out so soon afterwards. Norman wants to unmask Spider-Man to set an example, the first name in Osborn’s compulsatory registry of potential opponents, along with their real identities and main weaknesses—their friends, family, and loved ones.

Norman already sent people after MJ because of one tabloid photo with the webslinger—what would he do if he knew the truth?

With the man responsible for her mother’s death poised to take over the city, MJ needs to accelerate her exposé on Norman and OsCorp and reveal the truth to everyone before it's too late. But she's been so preoccupied with the symbiote that she fell behind Norman, again, and there are still too many missing pieces in her case to prove anything.

All the more reason she has to get back to New York—to protect her home from the real threat.

It also doesn't help her apprehension that one of Norman’s interns knows that she took the symbiote from OsCorp's labs, but there’s not much she can do except trust that Gwen won't expose her.

_‘We can take care of that problem…’ _ the symbiote growls in MJ’s head.

_‘Dude, we can’t solve everything by killing people,’_ she retorts._ ‘I think we’re supposed to talk it out sometimes.’_

_‘Blech. Boring!’_

Trying to figure out Gwen's current mental state, MJ texts her again on the way to class, but Gwen just replies that she’s "Super!" with a shooting star emoji and leaves it at that. MJ huffs in frustration, but decides not to be too pushy—the last thing she wants is for Gwen to panic and do something reckless.

She's even desperate enough to text Harry to ask if he's seen Gwen around, but all she gets from him is confirmation that he hasn't, followed by a question about what she’s wearing. Useless.

Chewing on the inside of her lip, she weighs the pros and cons of telling Peter about her and Gwen's abduction. On one hand, he would get upset and blame himself for letting it happen and being the reason MJ got targeted in the first place. On the other hand, Rage did prove that MJ could handle herself _and_ save Gwen from a couple of thugs.

Or she could say nothing at all—it's not like Peter gives her a detailed account of every fight Spider-Man's ever had or tells her about every person he's ever saved. Besides, there were days where it all seemed like a bad memory, which she could pretend never happened.

So MJ keeps her head down for the rest of the semester and focuses on simple tasks and errands, like saving up to move home and making sure her credits get transferred to ESU by the deadline, while pushing her actual worries to the back of her mind.

When she passes a bulletin board on the way back from class, Rage jerks them back to look at a flyer for an amateur wrestling tournament that’s pinned to the corkboard.

_'You can't be serious. That's the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,' _thinks MJ._ 'We are not using our powers to win illegal underground wrestling matches for money.'_

_'Why?' _asks Rage._ 'You said we need money, and that’s money from punching people! We’re good at that. Cash prize!'_

_'Still a stupid way to get found out. OsCorp will be on our asses the moment anyone tips them off. All it would take is one video on the internet and we're done for.'_

_‘But we’re hungry!’_

_'You know we don't get to eat the losing contestants, right?’_

The symbiote grumbles at that and slips away to the back of her mind, but the hunger remains, gnawing at her throughout the day.

Between classes, final exams and papers coming up, and her squeezing in extra work hours at the library, MJ barely has enough time for her morning runs anymore. On top of all that, she keeps missing calls from Peter, the highlight of her hectic days, which only makes the hunger wear both her and the symbiote down even faster.

She recognizes that feeling of drained serotonin and numb emptiness that precedes a ravenous binge, and just hopes she can make it a few more weeks until she's back in New York—and with Peter—for good.

Most of the time, MJ thinks she knows how to keep the hunger at bay, but it's unlike anything she's ever experienced before bonding with the symbiote. It's not quite an emptiness or vacuum waiting to be filled, nor a simple thirst. The hunger is alive and watching, it demands sacrifice and it is never satisfied.

Every encounter and memory they've had together has been stored inside the symbiote's codex, feeding the hunger and making the creature stronger and more powerful whenever it consumes a new experience. They can remember each stored memory with perfect sensory recall; it's how she was able to learn how to fight and use the creature's abilities so quickly—like muscle memory, etched into her cells.

Sometimes the hunger makes her throb and swell open like the sundew, a carnivorous plant that traps prey using its namesake sticky dew. Dripping off the plant's red tentacles, its glistening nectar lures in its victim and engulfs then in that dewy sweetness until they drown.

The hunger demands sacrifice.

Slipping a hand down her underwear, MJ starts playing with herself as she thinks of Peter, and how hot his blood runs after a fight, and how he can get a little rough when she asks for it.

What if he did take her right after patrol, spread eagle on a rooftop somewhere? That would be reckless, anyone could see them.

And what if they did? What could anyone really do to her now?

MJ indulges in the fantasy for a little bit longer, and imagines what it would feel like to have Peter with her right now. Running her other hand down her sides and over her chest, she tries to remember what his hands feel like on her, and how his kisses taste.

Frustrated, MJ slides another finger inside and keeps working to build up that tension, but it's not enough; she's too slick and there isn't enough friction.

_I need… what do I need? _

Her mind is sluggish with arousal._ I need Peter bending me over and…and…_ Her brain splutters as she tries to continue playing out her fantasy, struggling to come up with their next scenario and position.

_You're not very good at this, Michelle._

_Oh my god, shut up! You're throwing me out of my headspace. I thought you wanted the happy brain juice, so shut up! _

But Rage is, frustratingly, right. When she's with Peter, everything just comes so naturally—their bodies moving together in sync, effortlessly wrenching pleasure out of each other. Without him, MJ feels like she's chasing a high that leaves her wanting, no matter what she tries.

The rush from being with Peter is a better high than everything else she's tried—_including all the food, drugs, and violence in the world_, she thinks idly as she touches herself, swirling her slippery fingertips along her folds.

_We can remember what Peter feels like. Do you want to feel him? _the symbiote rumbles in her belly.

Her hand stills. She's never considered using her powers like that before.

The symbiote's biomass has been learning more about the human anatomy each time she's had a violent, or sexual, encounter—learned what it takes to pleasure it or break it, how far they can push the boundaries of their target's physical endurance.

Could she mimic what it feels like to be with him? Or would the hunger reject this false food?

Letting herself meld, MJ can feel the familiar ridges and shape of Peter's cock sliding against her inner walls, and she lets out a little gasp before closing her eyes and letting herself completely melt into the sensation.

It's almost as satisfying as the real thing, so MJ indulges a little longer, feeling the thick head pushing into her, and pretends that Peter is with her right now.

But she misses the waves of emotions that pour out of Peter whenever he's making love to her. She wants to feel the heat of his desire and the all-consuming fever of his devotion—the clawing possessiveness that makes each touch more than just about sex.

Her body is growing hotter and tensing up, but the motions feel mechanical and perfunctory, the rush purely chemical. MJ wants more—she wants to feel his breath on her neck and the way his grip tightens on her thighs right before he comes, like he needs to hold onto her or else he'd get lost.

She wants to consume and be consumed by him. She wants Peter to make her his and devour every part of her—body, flesh, soul—until there's nothing left, not even the hunger.

===

After helping the Craigslist buyer carry her IKEA dresser down to the elevators, MJ’s late to her video chat date with Peter. He seems annoyed about it but tries not to let it show, but MJ’s in enough of a crabby mood to call him out.

"Dude, do I need to remind you how many dates you've bailed on? Because I've lost count."

"I thought happy couples don't keep score?" Peter teases back, though it sounds a little bitter to MJ’s ears.

"Okay, whatever, Dr. Phil," she retorts, already starting to feel better from just seeing his face and hearing his voice.

Peter’s about to say something when a knock on her door interrupts them. The Craigslist buyer pokes his head in mumbling about a jacket he forgot, and MJ quickly shuffles around looking for it. When she gets back to her computer, Peter has already logged off.

He calls her back while she's out with her spoken word group, but she can’t really hear him in the middle of the noisy bar, and someone keeps yelling in her ear to hang up and do shots. Peter hangs up first.

MJ lets out a frustrated growl, but keeps her agitation under control. She just wishes she could be physically close to him, to sense what he's really feeling, and know what the right thing to do or say is.

So she tries the next best option to find out what’s going on with her boyfriend.

"Hey, Leeds, have you noticed Peter acting weird lately? Like more than usual for you dorks?"

“I don't know, MJ," says Ned, a little sharply, at least for him. “I'm not his keeper. Apparently I'm just a fanboy."

"Whoa. Trouble in nerd paradise?"

"No, everything’s fine," Ned replies unconvincingly.

She exhales into the phone for emphasis. "Come on, Leeds. Do you really want to do this the hard way? ‘Cause we can do this the hard way, but you sound like you’ve had a bad day, so just spit it out."

The sound of Ned's heavy sigh comes through the phone as he capitulates. "We had a fight."

"I gathered that much."

"Well, you know how Peter always says he has this responsibility because of his powers, and how if something bad happens, it's his fault?"

"Yup."

"Well, I might have said something about how he doesn't have to worry about that anymore, all that responsibility, since he doesn't have his powers right now. I was just trying to make him feel better!"

"And that's why you guys aren't talking?"

The symbiote can't detect emotion through the phone, but MJ can tell Ned was close to cracking.

"No, that's not the only reason," Ned blurts out. "Peter's mad because I told him he should stop patrolling… and that maybe I wouldn't keep being his Guy in the Chair if he was trying to get himself killed."

"Killed?!"

"Or hurt! Just hurt! Hypothetically."

"Hypothetically my ass—what happened, Ned? Tell me. Is he okay?"

"Yes! Basically," says Ned.

"Leeds." MJ's voice is sharp and final, her Decathlon captain tone.

To be fair, Ned probably wants to tell her, and ends up tripping over his own words to tell her about the last time he was on the comms while Spider-Man patrolled. Peter hasn’t needed a Guy in the Chair for regular patrols in years, but he asked Ned to be there that night, because his Spider-sense was “on the fritz” and he needed someone he could trust.

The night proceeded to go miserably; Spider-Man almost got hit by a construction crane that he should’ve easily detected and dodged, and barely managed to web up a few carjackers before getting hit with a crowbar in the stomach, something he used to be able to do casually with a few flicks of a single wrist.

"Do you think he really lost his powers?" MJ asks.

"I don't know. Could be a psychological thing, like a mental block?” Ned suggests, unconvinced himself.

MJ thought of how Peter's super-healing had slowed to the point of bringing Peter to the brink of death. That didn't seem like something that was just in his head.

"Maybe."

“It kinda comes and goes,” Ned continues, “but I haven't figured out a pattern yet, and it’s kinda hard when Peter won’t talk to me. When I told him to take a break from Spider-Manning, he got really upset and said I was abandoning him, just like everyone else. The next day he wouldn't even talk to me."

Knowing how much it sucks to be shut out from a secret, MJ almost feels guilty for not telling Ned about Rage, but it’s for his own safety—especially after what happened with Gwen.

Gross, she’s starting to sound more and more like Peter.

“Well, you’re a really good Guy in the Chair, Nedward,” says MJ, "for trying to cover for that dork even when you’re mad at him."

“Every superhero needs someone they can depend on,” Ned replies matter-of-factly. "But the hardest part is for the super to admit that they need help, too."

===

He knows where to find it this time. The vault. The pit of darkness. Where he belongs.

But before he can step inside, the light blinds him. It’s painful and he wants to hide from it, but it pulls him away from the cool comfort of the shadows.

Peter awakes with a jolt and sits up in bed, still seeing flash spots burned into his retinas as he blinks in the darkness of his dorm room. Another nightmare, one of the vault ones, but he still didn't make it down this time. He’s shaking and sweating, and his hands feel grimy.

Tossing and turning, Peter has trouble falling back asleep, but it won’t even matter. He already wakes up every morning feeling more exhausted than the night before, no matter how much he sleeps. He can’t really remember the strange and unsettling dreams the next morning, but the feeling of them always lingers, like the crust in his eyes, irritating and gritty.

As painful as it was, at least the blinding light reminded him of the sensory overload that came with his powers, and he’s almost nostalgic for the pain and the heart-clenching panic from his enhanced senses going into overdrive.

It’s not that his powers are completely gone exactly; they’ve just become less reliable, dulled. For one, he still has his super-hearing, which, given that he hasn’t been patrolling as Spider-Man since his fight with Ned, is only useful in letting him eavesdrop on what he doesn’t really need to hear.

He’s caught bits of people talking about Spider-Man’s fumbling performance at the Thanksgiving Day parade, while videos of it trend for a few weeks. Spider-Man fail videos aren't new—there's always some sort of Spider-Man clip trending—but it's different this time. He wasn’t just caught in an embarrassing moment, and his failure wasn’t a temporary fluke.

Peter knows he's still himself without the suit, but who is he without his powers? It’s the only way he can really help people, and being Spider-Man is the only thing that makes him special—and worth MJ’s time. Now that she also has super powers, what else did he have to offer her? To anyone?

It doesn’t help that Peter also got paired up with Harry Osborn as lab partners in the one class they share. He spends most of their study sessions going on about how he saved Gwen and her friends at the Thanksgiving Day Parade while gloating about Spider-Man’s bad time in the press.

_“Indeed. The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly, Mr. Parker_,” Norman’s words echo in Peter’s head. _“They cannot comprehend anything beyond their limited world, their small ambitions.”_

"Could we get back to the lab?" says Peter, exasperated.

Looking down at his phone, Harry chuckles to himself while typing out a text message. "Yeah, yeah, sure. Just let me get back to Michelle real quick."

"Michelle?"

Harry looks up at Peter with a knowing smirk. "Yeah, you know her, right? Goes to Harvard, killer legs, too hot for you? She was just saying hi.”

Peter looks down at his own phone to make sure he didn’t miss a message from MJ, nearly crushing the phonecase in his hand, but he manages to release it after the first creak of the plastic_._

“Don’t get your panties all twisted, Pete," Harry says without looking up. "Jealousy is very unattractive to girls."

“Just didn’t think you two were that chummy,” Peter mutters, instantly regretting saying anything.

"There's a lot you don't know about the two of us, Petey," Harry replies tauntingly.

Peter hates how Harry refers to himself and MJ as 'us', and he hates that she hasn't been picking up his calls but apparently texting Harry back.

As if reading his thoughts, Harry leans back in his chair and asks, “Has she been ignoring you lately? Or always late to respond and stuff? That’s what I’d do to a chick I’m about to blow off or ghost. Gently lower her expectations, you know? Maybe she’s just trying to let you down easy.”

Peter tries not to ruminate over how MJ's been missing a bunch of their video and phone dates for weeks, and how she’ll go the entire day before getting back to him. There was also that time when some guy Peter didn't know was leaving her place, and MJ seemed so caught off guard when he came back for his clothes. So Peter logged off from their video chat before she got back, not wanting to find out something he doesn't want to know.

Letting his mind spiral into dark places, Peter absent-mindedly digs his fingers into the desk, leaving minor but unmistakable indents. With a start, he jerks his hands back, hoping Harry doesn't notice the damage his lab partner just made with his bare hands on solid oak.

Shaking his head, Peter reminds himself that Harry is just trying to screw with his head, and that MJ isn't like that.

_‘Unless she's changed_...’ that intrusive voice in his head suggests. ‘_Unless she's always been waiting for something better to come along—someone better than puny Peter Parker_.’

Michelle said it herself that her appetite for everything—food, sex, music, anything that gives her a surge of serotonin—has increased exponentially since bonding with the Symbiote. Maybe she can't help it?

“Listen, Pete. Petey-o. I’m being real with you right now, man to man. Girl like Michelle? There's no way she isn't getting some when you’re not around.”

When Peter throws him a warning glare, Harry protests, "It's a compliment! Just saying, she's way too hot not to be. Plus she’s one of those ‘sexually liberated’ feminists, right? Those chicks love flexing by messing around. 'Reclaiming the word slut' or whatever. Trust me, I know the type.”

Slamming his textbook shut, Peter stands up and begins to pack up his things. "You know what? I can do this whole lab myself, since the material is probably too difficult for you anyway."

"Ha. Ha. Nice try,” drawls Harry, eying Peter swiftly scribbling calculations down with ease. He grabs the labsheet from Peter. “Actually, I don’t want you screwing up _my_ grade on this.”

Harry jerks the paper away when Peter makes a grab for it again, but raises his hands up appeasingly. “Chill out, Pete. Fine, I’ll do the stupid lab... on one condition.”

Peter rolls his eyes but motions for Harry to go on. "Stop being lame and go out tonight. You think Michelle wants to stick around with a loser who just reads textbooks on a Saturday night?"

"She's been fine with doing that so far," Peter retorts, even though it sounded stupid in his head, too. Harry gives him a look that says he agrees.

"Yeah, but do you challenge her? Get her all riled up? Or are you just a nice guy who avoids confrontation? No offense, but you're more of a highschool starter-boyfriend kind of guy, and Michelle's just going to outgrow you. Hell, she's already escalated to sucking face with superheroes, and that’s only what was caught on camera in public!”

“That was one time and it was last summer, before we started dating,” Peter says without looking up from his textbook, drumming his pen against the page harder than necessary.

“Aw, come on, Parker. You should be excited to be Eskimo bros with Spider-Man! I bet he's crawling through a different chick's window every night if y'know what I mean. If I were Spider-Man, I'd be making housecalls to lonely hearts all night long—"

"Then it's a good thing you're not Spider-Man!" Peter snaps, his hand shaking as he grips the edges of this textbook.

"You don't know that I'm not!" Harry replies blithely, throwing an arm around Peter, who shrugs it off. "Oh come on, Parker. Doesn't this look like her?"

Harry sticks his phone in Peter’s face and shows him a video of a woman with her back to the camera and long curly hair shaking as she bounces on someone in a red and blue webbed suit.

"Dude! Seriously, fuck off," says Peter, pushing Harry's arm away.

"So you think this could actually be her? Maybe this is how she's cashing in on the Spidey fame, get some paper on the side," Harry continues musing, unphased. "Come on, look, do those look like Michelle's tits?"

"Harry, another word and I'm—"

"What's your _problem_, Pete? I'm telling you your girlfriend is hot enough to do porn, and you're getting all pissy?" Harry reclines and spreads his arms over the back of the two chairs flanking him. “Or are you too whipped to even watch porn?"

“I’m not doing this with you, Harry.”

"Whatever, at least just watch it until the web-shot!"

"The what shot?"

"Web-shot, come on—keep up, Parker. When Spidey, you know, finishes. Like, all over her face—"

Peter feels his cheeks and ears go beet red. "Shut up, Harry."

In some twisted way, this might be how Harry makes new friends. It's exhausting, but Peter doesn't know how to get him to shut up. MJ's better at that kind of stuff.

“You know what I don't get about you?" Harry asks, leaning back in his chair.

"I'm on the edge of my seat, Harry," Peter deadpans, not looking up from his textbook.

Undeterred, Harry continues, "I'm wondering why you'd want Spider-Man's sloppy seconds. I mean, I get that she’s crazy hot, but doesn’t it suck when you know she’s comparing you to him?"

Peter feels his ears burn. “What are you talking about?"

"Michelle. She's got to be screwing the web-head," says Harry. "Why else would she turn me down?"

"Maybe because she's dating me," Peter says evenly, determined not to let Harry goad him.

_Because she's mine, _his mind growls, sounding foreign to himself.

_Yes! Show the spineless worm his place, _hisses the intrusive voice, loud and clear in Peter’s head, and he clenches his fists involuntarily.

"For now, yeah," says Harry dismissively, scrolling through his phone.

Clearing his throat, Peter breathes deeply, in and out through his nostrils, and says as calmly as he can, “Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to get at, but I think Spider-Man’s cool, okay? I don’t think he’s after my girlfriend, unlike some other jerks I know.”

“Ooh, is that almost an insult, Parker?” Harry folds his arms behind his head. “I’m serious, though," he continues. "You’re both better off without a long distance relationship—you're miserable, she's miserable, and either you've got blue balls or feel all guilty about fucking other people. It's totally lose-lose, the worst kind of deal."

Peter doesn’t like the smug expression on Harry's face, and how close he's gotten to what's been eating at Peter.

"And you know," Harry adds, "my father would never stand for anything less than a complete victory."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NYC welcomes MJ home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your kind feedback! I was going to wait until I finished writing the rest of the fic before post the remaining chapters, but screw it--life's too short! Enjoy!
> 
> CW: symbiote smut  
Chapter Track: [Lick It by Valentino Khan](https://open.spotify.com/track/2AUHVjR5lhg6GcztbGvRkc?si=T0R_FkYNR1226T8aKXElxQ)

_“Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging.” _

_—Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye_

_===_

MJ can tell that something is wrong with the city the moment she gets off the bus from Boston, noting the increased presence of militant-looking personnel patrolling the streets and their unconcealed weapons.

They must be from the private security firm that mayor-hopeful Norman Osborn hired, claiming that he was just trying to do what the NYPD can't—protect New Yorkers and maintain order _without_ Spider-Man's destructive assistance.

But MJ knows the real reason why he shelled out for a premium security force like Sable International, and it isn’t to protect the city from the likes of Headsman or Freak—Norman is hunting for Rage, and he’s willing to turn New York into a private police state to get what he wants.

Putting up her sweatshirt’s hood over her head, MJ sneaks past the OsCorp personnel counting the passengers getting off the bus and climbs into the luggage compartment below. After locating her suitcase, she wriggles into the storage space and exits through the other side—dropping right in front of oncoming traffic.

Sensing everyone else still idling on the other side, MJ flattens herself against the bus until the last car goes by, then briskly takes off across the street without looking back. Her rolling suitcase rumbles on the uneven pavement behind her while her heartbeat pounds in her ears.

She can’t keep wandering Chinatown out in the open like this, but she can’t go straight to Peter and lead anyone on her tail to him, either.

He's become increasingly distant and irritable the last few times they spoke, and it makes sense now that she sees what New York is like without Spider-Man—he must feel so trapped and powerless, watching this happen to their city. If MJ were in his position, she would lash out, too.

Turning her head away from a patrol passing in the other direction, MJ holds her breath and tries to sense how alert and hostile they are, but only detects mild suspicion directed at her back.

Letting out her breath as she rounds the corner, MJ ducks into an alleyway to regain her bearings and figure out where to go next.

When her phone vibrates from a text, her heart jumps.

**Gwen: **Has the ant arrived at the apple tree?

MJ frowns. She doesn't understand Gwen's message at all.

**MJ**: ???

**MJ**: something wrong with your autocorrect?

**Gwen**: no

**Gwen**: is the cordycep ant in the *big* apple tree??

**MJ**: are you asking me if I'm back in the city?

After a few minutes when Gwen hasn’t responded, MJ decides to venture out again and peeks her head around the corner of the building. The coast is clear, save for some old people in the park across the street feeding pigeons, so she starts walking as quickly as she can without breaking into a full sprint.

Scowling at the ‘Norman Osborn for Mayor’ billboards and ads plastered all over the city, MJ fights the itch to turn back and deface every instance of that fucking sneer. Everyone needs to know the truth about him, and she's running out of time.

_Someone is following us,_ the symbiote growls.

_Yeah, I can feel them now._

MJ was so distracted that she almost didn’t notice the presence catching up to her. They’re nervous and not particularly hostile, but also definitely intent on following her specifically.

To shake them off, MJ veers off Mulberry Street onto one of the smaller side streets, only to end up right in front of two Sable mercenaries who not-so-subtly begin to follow her.

_Our dinner is following us! _ Rage guffaws in a deep growl.

_No! If Sable finds any of their mercs missing, they'll know we're in New York, and we have to figure out how to stop Osborn before they find us._

When MJ hears the patrols’ footsteps pick up and start to close the gap between them, she starts to jog, brisk and nervous. One of the mercs says something into her communicator, and MJ hopes she’s not calling for any back-up. As their thudding footsteps quicken, she gives up and breaks into a full run.

"Shit, shit," MJ mutters, trying to dodge bikes and cars as she drags her rolling bag behind her.

Without looking back, she squeezes herself into a dense crowd of shoppers swarming a street of makeshift stalls selling fresh produce and hot egg cakes. After that, MJ makes her way down winding alleyways and past hocksters whispering about designer handbags and watches.

Just when she thinks she's finally alone, MJ catches a shadow move out of the corner of her eye. Freezing in place, she doesn't have time to think–there are no bystanders around, so this might be her only chance. She is about to let the symbiote loose on her follower when their hood falls back and she recognizes the flash of blonde hair.

“Gwen?!”

“Shhh!” Gwen holds her finger up to MJ’s lips to quiet her.

“What are you doing here? Have you been following me?" MJ hisses. "I was this close to eating you, you have no idea!"

"I was waiting in that boba tea place across from the bus drop off for hours,” she replies, taking her sunglasses off. “I wasn't sure which bus you'd be on."

"You could've just asked me," says MJ, frowning in confusion.

"Someone could be tracking one of our phones," replies Gwen, eyes darting around the empty street. “That’s why I’m wearing a disguise.”

"Your disguise is a baseball cap, sunglasses, and a hoodie?"

Gwen shrugs. "I didn't want to look like I was trying too hard to be inconspicuous. Anyway, I was watching for your bus, but then you just took off before I could get to you, so I followed you."

“What were you thinking?! Those Sable mercs could’ve picked you up, too!” MJ hisses, trying not to get too visibly upset while they’re standing around in the middle of the street.

Motioning for MJ to follow her, Gwen says under her breath, “I think they were following me, not you.”

"Why would they be following you?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling,” she replies uneasily, looking over MJ’s shoulder. “We shouldn't be talking out in the open here anyway.”

On the way to her apartment in Tribeca, Gwen tells MJ about the strange unmarked cars that have been appearing on her block recently and the eerie feeling of being watched, to the point where she's been getting jumpy about harmless people walking behind her.

“Have you told anyone?” asks MJ when they get up to Gwen's floor.

“Like the police? And tell them what?" says Gwen, inserting her key into the door. "That I think OsCorp is stalking me because I'm a loose end in an attempted abduction that I can't tell them about? That I think I'm being followed but don't have any evidence of direct threats against me with specific acts of violence? Nah, nothing the police will do about it until it's too late."

Crossing the vestibule leading into Gwen’s apartment, MJ steps around stacked cardboard boxes and loose packing materials. "Moving?"

"Not me, my roommate. Her parents freaked out after the Thanksgiving Day parade attack and made her withdraw from ESU. She already moved home, and they're having the rest of her stuff shipped separately."

Gwen motions for MJ to follow her to the kitchen and settle down at a round breakfast table covered in papers and notebooks filled with color-coded post-it notes.

"I miss my roommate, and it'll be weird not having her around, but it's been so much easier working out here instead of hiding it all in my room," says Gwen as she prepares two hot cocoas–one with extra chocolate for MJ.

"Hiding what? What exactly are you working on?" MJ asks, accepting a mug from Gwen and trying not to guzzle it too embarrassingly fast.

She jumps in her seat and nearly drops her hot drink when Gwen slams a heavy binder down on the table in front of her.

"It's all the evidence I've been gathering on Oscorp and that treatment study you told me about," Gwen explains, almost vibrating with excitement. "Which got replaced by an in-house project after the outpatient experiments were causing too many problems and inviting too many questions."

"Experiments? So you believe me that it's not just a medical study?" MJ asks hopefully, licking the last of the dark chocolate off her spoon.

Aside from Peter, she has never discussed her investigation into OsCorp with anyone, and being able to talk about it with Gwen makes it feel even more real.

Nodding frantically, Gwen opens the binder and starts walking MJ through the internal memos and correspondences, lab reports, redacted test results–potentially the evidence MJ needs to expose Norman and OsCorp.

"But this is where it gets interesting, and kinda personal," Gwen says grimly, opening a folder with a copy of a police report. "A few years ago, during the Blip, my dad got called in to investigate OsCorp after a police officer got attacked by–get this, some "creature" lurking the grounds. According to my dad's report, when he went looking for it with an armed unit, they got attacked by something that looked like a goblin with sharp claws."

"Holy shit," MJ mutters, looking at the report over Gwen's shoulder.

"I know!" exclaims Gwen. "They also found the employee badge of an OsCorp research assistant who'd gone missing. Well, technically he's still missing since a body was never found."

"What does that mean?"

"I think that RA tested whatever he was working on for OsCorp on himself and mutated into this proto-goblin thing that attacked my dad and his officers. And look at this," Gwen points to a photo, "one of the guys who was with my dad that day and saw the goblin thing? Look familiar?"

MJ's eyes go wide. "He was one of the men who kidnapped us."

"Yeah, looks like he was working for Norman on the side. A bunch of cops and ex-cops are actually working for him," explains Gwen. "Technically, NYPD officers are barred from taking certain types of jobs, like working as a bouncer or a locksmith–"

"–or hired muscle who goes around kidnapping girls for a billionaire CEO," adds MJ.

"Yup, but they don’t have to disclose the details of their side hustle. Which means the department has no idea how much officers are making on the side, what they’re investing in, and the names of people they do business with."

"That's convenient," MJ says sarcastically, nose scrunched up in disgust. "So they can just say it's a private security gig for an unnamed client, then go to town doing Norman's bidding without having to wear a body cam?"

"Bingo," says Gwen. "Norman probably has dozens of cops unofficially on his payroll, to fill the gap between his official OsCorp security and Sable personnel."

"And to do the dirty work that he won't be held accountable for, because even if his goons-in-blue get caught and brought to the station–"

"Nothing will happen to them, or Norman. And if he becomes mayor–"

"We're fucked," MJ concludes.

They both sit in silence as MJ digests all that information and Gwen looks at her expectantly. Her eyes are lit up and focused in a way that MJ recognizes as the excitement of being on the trail of a hot story. The disparate pieces may not make sense at first, but as they come together and the story becomes clearer, perhaps even obvious, unearthing the truth can be an addictive hobby, even an obsession.

"This is incredible, Gwen," says MJ, studying the documents in the binder. "But what happened to feeling 'super!' and not wanting to talk about it? Why didn't you tell me you were doing all this?"

Gwen shrugs. “If you knew, you would’ve tried to stop me or convince me out of it, so I saved us both the trouble.”

"By going ahead and doing it anyway?"

"Exactly."

Narrowing her eyes, MJ scrutinizes Gwen and her seemingly guileless smile, which she notices doesn't reach her eyes. She's scrappier than MJ gave her credit for, and she's impressed by Gwen's dogged determination and potentially unscrupulous methods—like pilfering and copying police reports from her father.

"OsCorp was either working with or bought something from a company called the Life Foundation, who were recruiting vulnerable populations as test subjects in the Bay Area," Gwen continues, flipping through documents with Life Foundation highlighted throughout, "and I guess OsCorp took a page out of their book when they started doing the same thing for their own project."

A surge of rage bubbles up inside MJ when she thinks of her mother as just another test subject, a data point, a failed experiment among many–as disposable to Norman as any other labrat.

But she'll show him exactly how disposable he can be.

“You’re pretty good at this investigation thing,” says MJ, trying to refocus her anger into fuel for the symbiote. "But how exactly did you get a hold of all this stuff?”

“Oh, you know... A little bit of snooping around, called in some favors, maybe borrowed my OsCorp manager's keycard and network login," Gwen replies coyly, twisting a lock of blonde hair around her finger. "You can get away with a lot by convincing people that you’re competent but gullible."

MJ furrows her brow at Gwen and gives her a dubious but impressed look. “That sounds pretty risky, aren’t you worried about getting caught?”

“What’s the worst that could happen? Oscorp might send some strange men to kidnap me and then threaten to assault and kill me?” Gwen says heatedly. “Oh wait, been there, done that.”

“They could do worse, and I won’t be there to protect you this time,” MJ says sternly. Oh god, she sounds like Peter.

“I appreciate that–really, Michelle, I do–but if I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time then, there’s nothing to stop Norman from hurting me or anyone else if we're in his way in the future. Unless we take him down.”

“We?”

“Yeah!” says Gwen, slamming her hand down on the binder. “We. I want in.”

MJ narrows her eyes incredulously. “In on what?”

“This—” Gwen gestures at the binder and MJ. “The symbiote, the investigation. All of it.”

"You want to be, like, my woman in the chair?" When Gwen gives her a confused look, MJ explains, "You know how there's always someone with a headset or whatever, telling the superhero where to go? They're in a chair with computer screens, running the mission?"

A look of glee lights up Gwen's entire face. "Yes! That. I accept."

"What?"

"I accept! I'll be your woman in the chair!"

"Oh, no, Gwen, I wasn't offering—"

"My dad taught me everything about police procedure, I can—"

"It's dangerous, Gwen. Knowing about—knowing my secret is already putting you in danger—"

"I got kidnapped, too, in case you've forgotten," Gwen shoots back, "and I had no idea what was going on back then."

"Exactly! And that was just because you were _hanging out_ with me—"

"And then you got us out of there!" Gwen protests. "They took you because they thought you knew Spider-Man, not because of the symbiote, and it was because of the symbiote that we escaped, alive! Wouldn't it be safer for me to know what's going on?"

_She's right_, gurgles the sleepy symbiote.

_Shut up, you're supposed to be on my side!_

Admittedly, MJ can't argue with Gwen's frustrating logic, but tries anyway. "The point is, Gwen, you'll always be in danger, and if anyone found out how close you are to me, then you'd have a target on your back, too."

"Close?" Gwen's voice sounds hopeful.

MJ shifts uncomfortably, mentally berating herself for her slip of tongue. She doesn't need Gwen knowing that she doesn't have a lot of close friends, and that she made the cut for MJ while it probably wasn't the same for someone as sociable as Gwen.

"Close to the truth, for knowing about the symbiote," MJ says quickly.

"Oh." Gwen seems to deflate, and looks down at her hands still splayed out on the binder.

After a moment of deep thought, her head whips back up at MJ, her eyes hard and determined. "Well, I've been a police captain's daughter my whole life, so I've always had a target on my back. At least now I know who's after me."

"It's not the same," MJ sighs, though she can't find a reason that wouldn't make her a hypocrite given every fight she's had with Peter, only the roles reversed.

"You _need_ me, Michelle," Gwen says passionately. "I can get inside OsCorp, obviously, but I also know how the NYPD operates, and my field of research is specifically genetic engineering. You need me to be your woman in the chair."

"Whether I need you or not is irrelevant," says MJ, shaking her head. Especially if needing Gwen will get her into deeper trouble. "Besides, why would you want to help me? You work for OsCorp, wouldn't you want to, I don't know, cover this stuff up?”

Raising her eyebrows until they disappear into her bangs, Gwen scoffs, affronted. “They fund the research I care about, but I don’t owe them anything. Especially not after they almost freaking killed me! I just—you were right, there’s nothing I could have done about it, no one to tell, no way to get back at them for—” She takes a deep breath, her chest hitching. "Except for this. I can get back at them by helping you, Michelle."

"MJ."

When Gwen tilts her head in confusion, MJ clarifies, "You can call me MJ. That's what my friends call me."

A bright smile breaks across the other woman's face. "Really? That's great! I mean, great, cool. MJ. You can call me, uh... you can still call me Gwen."

"Sounds good. Though how do you feel about 'Woman in the Chair'?" asks MJ, grinning back. "Or whatever weird code name you want to use."

"We'll work on a better name," Gwen replies diplomatically, hiding her smile behind what looks like an attempt at MJ's signature unreadable expression.

MJ nods at her. "Nice."

_===_

MJ didn't mean to stay at Gwen's place so late, but she lost track of time while going through all the information that Gwen had gathered. Laying the pieces out on the table, they talked through hypothetical scenarios while MJ filled in the gaps with her own research, and the hours flew by before they realized it.

When MJ finally checks her phone, she startles at the time and notes that there aren't any messages or missed calls from Peter. She sends a quick text to him anyway to say that she's on her way, and departs from Gwen's apartment feeling a mix of elation and vindication.

She was right about Norman Osborn. In his quest to create some sort of weaponized superserum, he had used dozens of unsuspecting patients to test earlier iterations of his formula, including MJ's mother, only to abandon them to their suffering and inevitable demise when his serum kept failing.

But the experiments only escalated when OsCorp moved them in-house. The new test subjects didn't even have a name or identity associated with their files, only a subject number, and were kept in locked observation cells until their 'trial' was 'terminated'. That's where MJ and Felicia found Peter when they broke in last summer, drugged and tied up in one of those cells.

Norman has already torn through countless lives trying to create the Green Goblin, so what is he still after, and why did he want Peter?

It’s almost midnight when MJ makes her way over to Peter’s dorm building, rushes up the seven flights of stairs to his floor, and knocks on his door.

No one answers, but she knows Peter's in there; she can hear his heartbeat through the walls. The symbiote swims through her veins, brimming with excitement—he's so close.

After she's satisfied that the coast is clear, MJ lifts open a window in the stairwell and crawls outside. She leans out to let Rage stretch its inky arms up the side of the building, and they begin to climb up toward Peter's window from the outside.

Crouching on the fire escape, she peers through the window and sees Peter sitting in the dark, his tired face illuminated by his laptop while the rest of him is outlined in shadows.

Smoothing down her hair, MJ takes a deep breath and taps on the glass. When Peter doesn't look up, she taps again, louder this time, even though she knows for a fact that his super hearing could detect her the first time.

“Peter, let me in! It's freezing out here!”

She can see him frown, torn between his instinctual need to help, and whatever’s making him give her the silent treatment. He eventually relents and opens his window to let her in.

“You look like shit, Parker,” is the first thing MJ says when she sees him.

His skin looks extra pale and clammy as he sits hunched over his computer. But what’s worse is the suspicion and wariness glinting in his red-rimmed eyes as he glares at her, following her movements as she comes further into his dorm room and settles herself on his bed.

“Thanks,” Peter mumbles, turning back to the computer screen. The blue glow casts gaunt shadows on his face. “So where’ve you been?”

Peering over his shoulder, MJ sees that he’s reading up on all sorts of crime around the city, undoubtedly beating himself over what Spider-Man could have done to prevent them and getting himself all agitated.

If she tells him she was at Gwen's place, she'd have to explain how they became friends. She'd have to admit that they both got abducted because OsCorp was trying to lure Spider-Man out, which is the last thing Peter needs to spiral over right now.

“Bus was late,” she finally says.

He rolls his eyes, his tired expression turning into something she doesn't like, something he's never directed at her: distrust and contempt. “Right. Well, you could have at least given me a heads up.”

MJ snorts, thinking back to all the unanswered texts and rambling voicemails she left on Peter's phone back in high school, and how she told herself that she's gotten over the sting of being ignored by her crush.

But instead of throwing back a cutting remark, she reminds herself that he's just worried and being an ass about showing it.

“I have some news,” she says instead.

When Peter doesn’t react and keeps ignoring her, she reaches for his chair with her foot and spins it around so that he has to face her. She bites her lips so she doesn’t smile too much. “I got into ESU. As a transfer for the spring semester. _This _spring.”

Her lips stretch wide in a grin anyway, and she presses them tightly together, waiting for his reaction.

Peter scowls in confusion, like she did something stupid just to annoy him, and asks, “Why would you do that?”

MJ's taken aback but doesn't let it show. “Gee, thanks, Pete, I’m really excited about ESU, too,” she replies with mock chipperness, leaning back away from him with her arms folded across her chest.

Peter shrugs wearily and rubs at his eyes. “I mean, I just don’t get why you’d leave Harvard to come back to this fucked up city where there are actual super dangerous super-villains." Turning away, he mutters, "Unless you wanted to make it easier to get with Harry.”

Of all the reasons she imagined Peter would have against her transferring to ESU, this wasn’t in the top ten, or even top hundred.

"You want to run that one by me again?" she asks, frowning.

“Forget it.” Peter continues typing away, and she can sense the cortisone coursing through him in his agitation, plus something else Rage can't quite identify. It's like a shadow just on the edge of their perception, flickering behind Peter's eyes.

“Well, whatever he's saying, don't let him get into your head," says MJ, scooting closer to Peter. "He's just trying to make you act more like, I don't know, _him_.”

“Seems to be working out for him just fine,” Peter replies coldly. The thing inside him is feeling threatened, defensive, sliding around anxiously.

MJ's eyes travel down the sleeves of his sweater, stretched threadbare, his thumbs worrying the edges to fraying. He's fraying at the edges himself, but she won't give him the fight he's looking for.

"Peter. I'm transferring to ESU because I want to be here," says MJ, "because I want to come home."

She could rattle off the list of her practical and academic reasons, but that's what it really came down to in the end.

"I want to come home to_ you_, you dumbass," says MJ, itching to reach for his hand, "so don't make me regret it."

A younger Michelle would have balked and backtracked her confession by now, appalled to have made such a big decision in the first place with a boy in mind. But she's not that girl anymore, and she can want what she wants.

Peter stands up, scrubbing his face, and looks down at MJ, tired and deflated. “I’m sorry, Em. I… I’ve been a mess, and just… not feeling like myself lately."

"Understatement of the fucking century," MJ mutters, crossing her arms.

"I know, I know," he says, his voice no longer terse and strange-sounding. "I really am sorry."

She graciously waves him off, but the knot of anger in her throat is still threatening to choke her.

“And it’s not about Harry, not really,” he continues, sitting down beside her on the bed “He’s just… really good at getting on my nerves. And maybe he said some stuff that was already on my mind, stuff I'd been worrying about.”

Peter holds out his hand on his lap, an invitation and apology.

After staring at his hand for a long moment, MJ laces her fingers through his, even though she is still annoyed at him for the things he said and for thinking she would ever betray him. If anything, Jones women were loyal to a fault, and that was always their undoing.

“There's only ever been you," she says quietly, looking at his thumb rubbing circles on the back of her hand. Looking up at him, she screws up her face in distaste. "My sex sounds are too embarrassing for anyone else to hear.”

“Your sex sounds are sexy,” says Peter, pulling her close, acting more like himself again.

She snorts, laughing while making silly multiple chins with her neck. "Sexy like this?"

“Yes, exactly like this,” he says softly, looking into her eyes. The shadows on his face and the manic cast in his eyes are gone, and he looks like her tired but ever earnest Peter again.

"Tell me what you want, MJ."

"You," she replies, putting her arms around his waist.

His hands slip under her top, sliding against her stomach and just skimming the bottom curve of her breasts. MJ sighs and throws her head back, shivering. In no time, their clothes are scattered all over the floor, forgotten as they wrestle each other on his bed.

"I can't stop thinking about you, MJ. I haven't been able to—it makes me feel like I'm going crazy sometimes."

“Easy there, tiger,” she says when she feels his hard-on twitch against her, sliding against her slickness.

Peter groans as if he hasn't felt her wet for him a hundred times before, but he holds back like she told him. "I want to be inside you so badly, Em," he says, running his hands all over her, trying to coax her into giving into him.

It almost works, but MJ wants to make him earn it, for how he treated her before, and tells him as much.

"You can use your hands, but only your hands," she instructs, voice hard and almost detached from her.

Peter nods contritely, and before MJ realizes what's happening, a dark lattice blooms out of her skin, crawling across her body to connect into a smooth black sheen, skin-tight against her curves.

The black ooze ripples under his hold on her hips, and he maneuvers MJ under him and parts her knees.

"Are you hungry?" Peter asks, looking into her eyes meaningfully.

"Yes," MJ says without hesitation, feeling the symbiote surge up inside her. "We're starving."

"Then open your mouth," says Peter, tracing his thumb along her collarbone and up her neck.

MJ does as he says and sucks on the two fingers he pushes into her mouth, and he reaches down between her legs. He caresses her over the suit, and the symbiote skin shivers in delight when he digs his fingertips into it.

"How does that feel?"

"Really good," MJ replies, swallowing thickly. "Keep going."

Flashing her a little grin, Peter curls his fingers against the slithering black biomass, then presses in slowly, stretching the membrane bit by bit.

MJ has never felt anything like this before. It feels strange but good, and she can feel how far the symbiote has let Peter in, and the discomfort from his intrusion is exciting and new.

The feeling reminds her of melting ice cream on a nightstand somewhere in Queens, the hot sticky August humidity clinging to her skin, Peter on top of her in another bed—his highschool bedroom, the end of summer. She can still remember his deft but trembling fingers rolling the condom on, and then that first push, the pain and satisfaction.

With a determined grunt, Peter breaks through the symbiote skin and plunges his fingers inside her directly, and MJ lets out a deep moan. The black ooze shudders and ripples, and an intense sensation of pleasure that rushes through her in waves.

His fingers start pumping in and out of her, slick and relentless, the symbiote skin stretched open around his knuckles.

"You're so tight," he says in a low voice. "Do you both like getting spread like this? Feeling my fingers loosen you up?"

Rage purrs and a shiver runs down MJ's spine. As Peter begins to move, she shuts her eyes again, bracing for the delicious pain.

The symbiote has never had someone touch it like that before, digging into the pliable mass like Peter is doing, and a wave of chemicals surges through MJ's body, sending a heady rush of euphoria into her brain.

Her body aches for that feeling of oblivion; she wants to get fucked so hard that she can't think about anything else anymore.

Having Peter penetrate the symbiote felt like she was letting him touch a secret part of her, more intimate and vulnerable than any other part of her that he's stroked or tasted before_. _

Pleasure ripples across the surface of her skin like a magnetic liquid, thick and tingling. Her orgasm comes on fuller and harder than ever, leaving her more satisfied than any of her solo sessions in Cambridge.

Michelle feels like a sweaty puddle of satisfied goo, her body open and throbbing from Peter's hands, and she can't hold herself back any longer.

"You can use more than just your hands now," she gasps, the inky ooze on her skin pulsing with her heartbeat.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Michelle says, wrapping her arms around Peter. "I want all of you."

His eyes are dark and hungry as he looks her up and down. "I want all of you, too. Fuck, Em, you have no idea how much I've been… I just really missed you."

"Well, you have me now," she says, squeezing her thighs around him, and the black suit ripples around her, pulling him flushed against her body. "And we've really missed you, too."

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and let me know what you think, and kudos if you enjoyed!
> 
> Find me on the [Tumblr @machiavelien](https://machiavelien.tumblr.com/) :3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [NSFW Art: Don't be Gentle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27424858) by [Machiavelien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Machiavelien/pseuds/Machiavelien)


End file.
